


Cold Fusion

by dalniente



Series: Cold Fusion [1]
Category: Megamind (2010)
Genre: (mostly canon compliant), Canon Compliant, F/M, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-02 07:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20675366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalniente/pseuds/dalniente
Summary: Megamind is made of some tough stuff, but there's a reason he was afraid of Titan.  Meanwhile, Roxanne is still sorting through her feelings on...everything.





	1. Chapter 1

Roxanne has a lot on her mind, a lot to think about, and when she finally, _finally_ manages to escape the crowds and cameras and go home, she wants nothing more than to take a hot shower and go to sleep. And not _think _for a while.

She can stop worrying about Hal, now, which is a relief, but she still has to try and process Metro Man's abrupt retirement. Knowing he's alive is nice, but knowing he didn't turn up even when things were actually pretty dire…that stings. What she told Bernard—no, she reminds herself for the umpteenth time since last night, no, that was Megamind, Megamind all those times—was the truth: she and Metro Man were never a couple. But that doesn't mean she never regarded him as a friend. He had been one of her closest, in fact, before he 'died.' Definitely enough of a friend that she feels more than a little bit betrayed at his leaving her out to dry, no matter how glad she is to know he's alive.

And then, of course, she still has the whole Bernard-Megamind fiasco to consider. At this point, Roxanne is well aware that the person she fell for was Megamind. But…

She shakes her head and turns around as the elevator doors close behind her. _Enough_, she tells herself. _Enough thinking about this for one day_. But of course she's still thinking about it when she reaches the seventeenth floor, and she's muttering under her breath as she slides the deadbolt home behind her.

She sheds her clothes all the way to the bathroom, then slams the sliding plexiglass shower door closed, determined not to think _but seriously this time, Roxanne_.

And, for the next half-hour or so (because at this point she _deserves _a long hot shower and her utilities bill can go piss up a rope, as far as she's concerned; electricity is fairly cheap in Metro anyway), she really doesn't. This is due more to years of conditioning than strength of will—she has never allowed herself to think about heavy problems in the shower, not since she was in school and worrying about her GPA, and over the years she's kept up the habit. Water goes on, worries go off: full stop, end of story.

But when she gets out of the shower and into her pajamas and bathrobe, all her problems come rushing back. She's exhausted, but the last thing she wants to do is sleep. She's pretty sure she wouldn't be able to, anyway, even if she tried. Her mind is still flying at full tilt; she is still on edge and jittery, her nerves jangling and her knees weak.

"Damn you, adrenaline," she mutters, and picks up her clothes and then wanders off to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of coffee and retrieve the book she left on the counter that morning. Then she comes back to her living room and turns on the news, hoping for something mindless and droning so she'll be able to focus on her book.

She should have known better, really.

Usually the news makes for decent background noise, because very little is news to Roxanne, but despite her best efforts she can't tune it out tonight. They keep rolling footage of 'Metro Man' fighting Hal, and Megamind fighting Hal, and Megamind getting tossed around and shot at and stepped on and punched and slammed into a concrete wall hard enough to leave a spiderweb of cracks behind and _good god_, do they have to keep _showing _that?

Because even as confused as she is about him, the sick-churning _please, no_ feeling in her stomach when she saw him impaled by the Metro Tower spire is something she never wants to feel again. As she watches the film clips repeat, the footage from cell phones and cheap video cameras mostly blurry and out-of-focus, she sees again just how close a thing it all was. It was luck, really, pure blind luck and stubbornness that they won at all.

She tries to remind herself that she's still mad about Bernard, but a moment later she finally has to admit it isn't quite as true now as it was earlier. She's still _upset_, certainly, and confused and hurt, but anger is no longer at the forefront.

There were a few times when she was kidnapped that scared her, but those were ages ago. They were all back in the beginning, before she'd come to know the villain.

As much as anyone can claim to _know_ Megamind. He was generally secretive and prickly and as off-putting as he could manage to be, in those early days, but the fact that he never intended to harm her became obvious pretty quickly. Hurting Roxanne would have been pointless, and…he honestly seemed to enjoy their encounters.

And really: anyone Minion likes must have _some_ good qualities, right?

Roxanne had never questioned Megamind's own assertion that he was evil, or pushed too much about the career supervillain's motivations beyond furthering his schemes. Not openly, at least. She had definitely wondered, but…he hadn't given her many reasons to really dig deep. Silly antics and shameless flirting and the occasional chatty mood notwithstanding, he mostly kept his guard up. Kept his guard up _and_ offered more than enough newsworthy material to keep everyone satisfied—and most importantly, refused to speak in the presence of any reporter who wasn't Roxanne, and then only during kidnappings. And he'd told her flat-out, once, early on: he doesn't like questions.

No sense prying into the man's personal life when she has a reasonably solid rapport with him already. No sense risking it. He wasn't the only one who occasionally enjoyed their encounters, inconvenient and aggravating though they were at times.

_Did you really think that I would ever be with you?_ She mutes the television, tips her head back against the sofa, and closes her eyes, considers this.

Last night, she was furious. Furious and _scared_, and that was the unsettling part, really. Megamind hadn't been frightening in ages. Weird, yes; diabolical, yes; evil…sure, okay. Never actually scary, not for years. But knowing he spent so much time twisting her mind in his favor, and _she fell for it_—that was horrifying. She never expected him to be able to toy with her so easily, wouldn't have pegged him as the type. Heck, she hadn't expected him to have that kind of _attention span_.

Looking back, though, she's pretty sure she knows what happened. Megamind truly _doesn't_ have the drive necessary for that kind of long game. Looking back…the whole thing started off as a way to get her out of his Lair. And then _she _brought the whole 'partner' thing up, surprised him with that, and she knows from experience that Megamind tends to short-circuit when he's surprised. He went along with _her_, initially, and from there things had progressed into something else. Roxanne isn't sure what, anymore, but the way he'd looked at her…

The way he had _talked_ to her, from the safety of his human mask. Let her investigate him—helped her do it! And the way she'd talked to _him_. The way he had listened, and laughed, and made her laugh.

And even with the mask off, it's not like he's unattractive. Not at _all_. He's physically stunning, honestly: fine-boned and wiry, bright smile, high cheekbones. Well-groomed. Fastidious.

And of course he is also dazzlingly brilliant, which…is attractive, too; Roxanne's always gone in for that. And he's never talked down to her, even though he definitely could if he wanted to.

Okay. Yes. Yes, as far as potential partners go, she could do a lot worse than Megamind. And she isn't sure she could do better than him, even if she wanted to—_does _she want to?

She doesn't think so, and that's…about as unsettling as Bernard turning into a space alien in the middle of a restaurant, to say the least.

She sighs. _No sleep tonight_, she thinks, and then jumps about a mile when her buzzer sounds.

She's running on autopilot and answering the door is reflex, so she's already in the process of undoing the deadbolt when she realizes it's half-past two in the morning, and who the _hell _would be calling on her at this hour of the night? She presses her eye to the peephole.

_Minion? What the_—_?_

She opens the door. And then she sees what Minion is holding, and her stomach turns over again and she's amazed to find that she can actually speak words, real words, because her mind has gone totally blank.

"Minion, what _happened?_"

He blinks down at her. "I'm sorry it's so late, Miss Ritchi, I really am. I didn't know where else to take him after today."

Roxanne just holds the door open as wide as she can for him. She isn't sure how to answer that one—she isn't even sure if she _can_, because this, _this _is the cherry on top of the sundae of disaster that has been her week so far.

In Minion's arms, Megamind is very pale, and very, very unconscious.

"I don't understand," she manages, staring first at Megamind and then up at Minion's unhappy little face. "What…he was _fine _earlier, what on Earth happened to him?" _He looks like he's been hit by a bus_, she thinks, and has to resist the hysterical urge to laugh.

"Titan happened," says Minion, and then, seeing her expression, sighs a little. "A side effect of the dehydration process is that it takes your nerves a little longer than the rest of you to rehydrate. The less time spent dehydrated, the longer your nerves are out of commission."

Roxanne shakes her head a little. Another time this would have made total sense, but it's two in the morning and after the day she's just had, she's feeling a little slow on the uptake.

"He seemed fine earlier because he couldn't feel any pain," Minion explains. "But rehydration is…well, it's hard on your cells on a good day, and after what Titan did…his body's beginning to shut down."

Her jaw drops. "He's _dying?_"

"No!" Minion's voice is a startled yelp. "No, not dying—it would take more than that to kill him. Probably."

Roxanne is nodding frantically, latching onto that piece of information. "Yes, all right, of course, I mean I've seen him stand up to Metro Man and he was always okay after that, so…"

Minion gulps a little. "Miss Ritchi, Metro Man only ever tried to hurt him."

This is true. Metro Man was never shooting to kill. There's a long, awkward pause.

"I can't keep him in Evil Lair. People were already starting to turn up looking for it and it's the middle of the night. I've been out of it all day, and I didn't realize…I didn't _think_…" Minion's voice is getting higher by the second, which pulls Roxanne back to reality somewhat. _The facts:_ Megamind is hurt, and maybe Minion is too. She shoves her rattling nerves to the back of her mind and takes charge.

"Is there a doctor who can treat him?"

Minion hesitates. "I don't…I don't know. There's a doctor at the prison, but I don't know what Sir's legal status is right now and I don't know how long it'll be before he can break out, and they always separate us when they catch both of us, and—"

Okay. So, no doctors.

"You both can stay here, then. Come with me."

Minion shakes his head, but Roxanne is already heading towards the closet where she keeps future Christmas gifts. "I only came to ask if you knew a good hiding place. People know where you live."

Roxanne's apartment is a mess of old newspapers and magazines, but she knows where everything is and she doesn't have to search for what she wants. "Yes, and if anybody tries to break in here, I'll have a team of rabid lawyers on them so fast it'll break the sound barrier." She pulls down a flat box she had intended to give her brother. "He'll be perfectly safe here until he recovers."

"That's kind of you, Miss Ritchi, but I really don't think…"

She turns. "_Minion._"

"What?"

She holds out the box. "Get him into these and out of that suit. It's too tight, he needs to be able to breathe easier. Is he clean?"

"Yes, the detox—"

"Good. Call me when you're done." She disappears into the bedroom and hurriedly changes her sheets. She switched them just last week, but who knows what Megamind's immune system is like when he's in this state. Better not risk it. And she needs to do _something _to keep from thinking about how he picked her up and swung her around this afternoon, laughing.

"Miss Ritchi! Help?"

She's back in the living room in record time. Megamind's leathers, spandex undersuit, boots, and gloves are in a pile on the floor, and the blue alien on her sofa is now clad in a set of grey silk pajamas that are miles too big for him. Mostly clad. His shirt front is still open.

"It's the buttons," Minion says miserably, "this is my spare body and it's bigger than the other one and I can't get the hang of these buttons."

Roxanne waves his hands away and does up the buttons as quickly as she can, trying not to see the dark bruises purpling under Megamind's blue skin. In all the years she's watched him battle Metro Man, all the times she's seen him get hit, she's almost never seen Megamind actually show signs of injury. Metro Man must have been pulling his punches.

She straightens, ignoring the tightness in her throat, and heads back towards her room. "In here."

Minion hesitates. "Are—are you sure? He's small, he's stayed on couches before, and I really do hate to impose."

Roxanne chokes back another shrill laugh. _I'm hysterical,_ she thinks wonderingly. _I haven't been hysterical in _ages_._

"Minion, do you _want _him on a sofa? Like _that?_"

"But—it's your bed! I don't want you to have to—" He stops talking when he sees the way she's glaring at him. "Okay. Thank you."

He puts his charge down on Roxanne's bed where she's turned the covers back, slowly arranges his arms by his sides. Then, one hand under Megamind's long neck, he glances around. "Do you have…um, a small pillow? Or something similar?"

Roxanne does not, but she thinks she knows what he has in mind and she thinks of something that might work. Something ridiculous and childish in her won't let go of the notion that it might also be lucky, so she hunts under the bed for the box she wants until she finds her prize. "Will this work?"

Minion looks at the stuffed dog Roxanne is holding. Its fur is flattened around the middle and it's squished from years of hugging, one button eye is missing and the other is loose. It is ragged and patched, half its lopsided face doesn't match, and stuffing pokes out of a small hole under one of its arms.

But, "Thanks," says Minion, and he takes Mars and slips him under Megamind's neck, then pulls the sheet and comforter up over his chest, never mind that it's summer and the air conditioning in Roxanne's building shorted out earlier in the week.

Throughout all of this, Megamind doesn't move; his shallow, unsteady breathing does not change.

"Won't he overheat?"

Minion looks at her curiously. "Exactly how much body fat do you think he has?"

She shakes her head. "Right. Of course," she says, and follows Minion out of the room, turning out the lights as she leaves.

After a long while, Megamind's shallow breathing evens out, then deepens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been edited somewhat from its original version. If anything in it doesn't match up with what you remember, it's definitely not you! I'm working my way back through the series and editing it into something a little more deliberate before continuing. Let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

Ten minutes later, Minion is in a rough state, circling in his dome, his eyes huge. Roxanne has never seen the smaller alien this frantic, but knowing Minion, it makes sense. He's been keeping himself together long enough to make sure Megamind is safe, but now that he's taken care of things as much as he can, he is allowed to panic.

"Minion," Roxanne says firmly, and waits until he looks at her. "Minion, do you like coffee?"

He gapes at her for a minute before her question sinks in. "No."

"What do you like?"

Minion closes his eyes. "Right now? Right now I'd like an egg. Two, if you can spare them."

Roxanne wasn't expecting that, but she's determined not to be surprised about anything else tonight. "Okay. How do you want them cooked?"

His eyes blink open again, wide and confused. "I don't," he blurts, then shakes himself, looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry. That's…disgusting, I know, but after all that's been happening, I…"

_Teeth_, Roxanne thinks. She's only ever seen Minion eat food that he cooks, but not often enough to get a feel for his eating habits. _Right. He must have teeth like that for a reason_. "I have some raw chicken in the fridge, would that be better?"

He stares some more, looking just as tired and shell-shocked as she feels, and this time she doesn't bother to wait for a reply. She goes to the kitchen and pours herself another cup of coffee, since the first cup doesn't seem to have kicked in yet. Then she grabs the carton of eggs and Styrofoam package of chicken out of the refrigerator. The chicken was going to be tomorrow's dinner, but at this point she couldn't care less, so she puts it on a plate, tucks the eggs under her arm and picks up the mug with her other hand, and goes back out to her sitting area.

Minion is sitting on the floor by the sofa with his feet together in front of him, gazing blankly up at the muted TV. "Why don't they play something else?" he asks dully when she sits down next to him, then blinks at the eggs and meat she sets on the coffee table. He looks back over at her, surprised. "You were serious?"

Roxanne runs a hand through her damp hair and curls her legs under her. "Minion, it's almost three AM and the only reason I'm still awake is because my brain won't stop pinwheeling. I don't think I could be sarcastic if I tried."

She has the good sense not to look at Minion while he eats, but she does switch to the discovery channel while she drinks her coffee. She is sick of the news, sick of seeing Megamind thrown against that wall over and over and over again.

Minion is quiet for a while. Roxanne says nothing about the crunching of eggshells, or the fact that the chicken wasn't boneless, only makes a mental note that she does not want Minion to bite her, ever.

Finally he clears his throat. "You can ask, you know."

The questions burst out of her. Some small, rational piece of her is surprised how quickly she responds; she'd thought she had more self-control than this. "_What is wrong with Megamind?_ It's been _hours _since he took you home, what's changed? Is he going to be all right? Are _you _going to be all right?"

Minion heaves a heavy sigh. "I'm okay. And I think he'll be okay, too, Miss Ritchi, I really do."

"But what _happened?_" she wants to know. "After you dropped me at home? What…"

He swallows. "I, I should have noticed sooner, but I was…out of it. I got shaken around a lot today, you know? And I was pretty loopy from the fountain water. It…" He frowns a little. "To be honest, it probably hasn't worked all the way out of my system yet, either. I'm getting there, now, but—but earlier I wasn't as on top of things as I usually am. I should have _noticed _something was wrong—he was driving so _slowly_. He _never_ drives carefully. It was getting dark when we got back to Evil Lair.

"He brought me in, fitted me into this body, then left me to charge my power cells and rest while he went to clean himself up and change. He—he told me to go to sleep. 'Sleep, Minion. You need it.' It's what—it's what he always says—" His voice goes high at the end, and for a moment, Roxanne is afraid he might actually cry. She isn't sure what she'll do if that happens. She's barely holding herself together as it is; the last thing she needs is for Minion to break down.

Luckily, he draws a deep breath and mostly composes himself, but there's a certain twist to the way he's flicking his fins that Roxanne recognizes as a clear sign he's upset. "He didn't come back. When I woke up, it was past midnight, so I went looking for him. I found him in the detox chamber like that. I thought at first he just fell asleep in there…but then I remembered everything from today, and he _wouldn't _wake up." Minion stops talking for a moment to drop another piece of chicken into the top of his tank. Roxanne looks tactfully away. "Thanks. Miss Ritchi, for what it's worth…this is standard procedure for him. He's only been hurt like this a couple times before, but he went into torpor both times."

She blinks, looks back around at him. "Torpor? What, like hibernation?"

"I…think so? Sort of like that." He sinks a little in his dome, frowning. "His body stops all unnecessary processes in order to conserve energy, and focuses everything on healing the damage. He heals amazingly quickly, you know. He's a lot tougher than he looks," he adds, but he sounds insistent and defensive and Roxanne has to wonder which of them he's trying to convince. "We fell through Earth's atmosphere and _bounced _and we were fine. Shaken up a little, but fine."

She makes another mental note to ask about that later. "But why bring him here? Why not keep him in the Lair?"

"People were already starting to look for Evil Lair," Minion tells her again. "Some of them even found it. I could hear them outside."

"At two in the morning?"

Minion shrugs. "I didn't _invite _them, they invited themselves. No sense of propriety, these kids. Anyway, I don't want him being disturbed while he's…recovering. I can't take him to a hospital, they wouldn't know what to do with him and they might call the government and if he can't defend himself—" Minion cuts himself off, takes another deep breath, and presses on before Roxanne can ask. "All he needs is a bed, I think. In a safe place where no one can find him. The prison has beds, but he still _technically _has eighty-eight life sentences to his name. I can't risk taking him there until we've sorted everything out. You're the only one I could think of who might help us, since…since you've known us so long. And…he seems…fond of you."

Is it her imagination, or does he sound a little hesitant?

"Minion?"

He looks at her guiltily. "Please try to understand, Miss Ritchi. The villain never gets the girl. My job—"

She cuts him off. "Wait, _you _told him that?"

"_Everyone _told him that. He's said it himself, a few times," Minion says. "It's true enough."

"It is _not_."

"Really?" Minion raises an eyebrow at her, and she squirms. "What, exactly, did you say to him that made him turn himself in?"

She looks away. "I was still trying to wrap my mind around the notion that he might actually _want _the girl," she mutters. To her astonishment, Minion smiles a little.

"Of course he wants you, Miss Ritchi." In his bowl, he looks tired, and Roxanne is abruptly aware of just how late it is and how long she's been awake in spite of her coffee. "But he knows he can't have you. He doesn't think he can have _anybody_. Goodness, you should have heard the fights we used to have! I stopped trying to convince him not everybody hates him _years _ago; now I mostly just focus on damage control, trying to keep him out of harm's way. For all the good that does." He pauses, looks her up and down. "You're very tired and you need to go to sleep, but before you do…I'd like to know what your intentions are towards him."

Roxanne's head snaps up. "What?"

"Please tell me what you want from him," says Minion, sounding apologetic. Then, when she stares at him, "I saw how you talked to him at the fountain. And in the car. I was loopy, not unconscious. You were—friendly?"

Lord, it is too early in the morning for this.

After another couple seconds, he gulps a little. "Miss Ritchi, he…he isn't easy to deal with, and he tends to overthink some things and overlook others, but…he has his moments. And—and I think he's more fragile than he lets on where you're concerned."

Roxanne is perfectly capable of reading between the lines. "Minion, you don't have to worry." She scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I don't know exactly where I stand with him, but…yes, he's my friend, and I want him to be okay. At this point, I owe him that much."

_I think I might love him_, she doesn't say. _I just don't know if I should._

"I'm going to try to get some rest," she says aloud. She has no idea if she'll be able to fall asleep, but it's worth a shot. "Is there anything in particular you need?"

Minion shakes his head, and the lights on his suit wink out as, to Roxanne's amusement, a fake castle rises out of the base of his tank. Minion squeezes into it and the castle descends out of sight.

Roxanne turns out the lights, then flops down on the sofa and shuts her eyes. Her feet are cold but she'll deal with it; her apartment is warm enough. She isn't moving. She's way sleepier than she realized, coffee and all.

Minion's voice floats out of the darkness, echoing up from somewhere inside his suit's carapace. "Miss Ritchi?"

"Mmm?"

"Thank you for letting us stay."

_Anytime_, she wants to say, but she drifts off before the word can find its way to her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love minion's sleep castle, best little gag in the whole movie


	3. Chapter 3

The two of them fall into a routine astonishingly quickly. According to Minion, Megamind probably doesn’t need anything but to be allowed to lie motionless until he wakes up, so Roxanne begins her week determined to ignore his presence as best she can.

Apparently Megamind gave the brainbots some instructions before he lost consciousness, because the first thing Roxanne notices when she goes to the office on Tuesday morning is the droves of yapping little machines traveling the streets. Where the traffic lights have been destroyed, brainbots hover in midair, stacked three deep, holding up glowing discs of red, yellow, and green in perfect formation. In a couple of places, they’re busily installing new traffic lights. Others are clearing rubble from streets and sidewalks. A shadow passing over her car makes her look up to see more of them carrying I-beams in the direction of the Bay Bridge; a few minutes later, when an immense concrete circle flies by, Roxanne realizes they’re beginning to rebuild the Tower. Curious, she takes a detour and discovers that the ruins of the building that nearly killed her and Minion are already almost gone. 

When she arrives at the news station, brainbots are replacing the windows while her nervous coworkers look on. Most of Metro evacuated for the Titan Incident, if not immediately after Megamind took over City Hall, but a good number of people with media jobs and connections stayed. KMCP News is not quite as much of a ghost town as some of the other offices in mid-Metro. 

More’s the pity. Roxanne keeps her head down as she goes to her cubicle, taking advantage of her coworkers’ distraction to avoid being seen and questioned. She knows being asked about yesterday’s…_events _is unavoidable, but she’d really prefer to avoid it for as long as she can.

One of the older models of brainbot, the ones that look kind of like metal-plated armadillos, is already at her desk, sunning itself under the small full-spectrum lamp she keeps on her desk. “Hey,” she says, surprised, and its movable ‘eye’ flickers to life and curls towards her.

“Yeah, sorry about that thing.” Jo, Roxanne’s friend and neighbor at the next cube in the row, is leaning on their shared divider and grinning at her. “It showed up, turned on your light, and wouldn’t leave.”

Roxanne is actually kind of happy to see the little bot. She recognizes the glowing markings and segmented tail; this is one of the few early models who’s still regularly assigned to her security detail, not that any of them ever did much good when Metro Man showed up. “Hey, Nibs,” she says again, and reaches out to rub its domed back as she falls into her chair. Nibs whirs under her hand like a hard drive spinning to life and thumps its tail against her desk.

“Nibs?” Jo echoes, blinking.

Roxanne nods and turns on her computer. “Yeah. I’m surprised this little guy is still operational, most of his run got fried a few years ago when Megamind’s Superstorm Generator failed. These ones didn’t react well with the lightning.” She runs her fingers over the diodes under Nibs’ chin, and Jo gives a little scream when the bot yaps and flings itself into Roxanne’s lap.

Roxanne laughs. “Fully charged now, are we?” _Bowg bowg bowg_, says Nibs, and plugs itself into her computer. “Hey,” she exclaims. “When did you get the flash drive?”

The cursor moves on her screen, opens a blank .txt document.

_Brainbot Model 6.3, Designation: 77_  
_Serial No. 236AR904D_  
_ Alternate: “_Nibs”_  
_ Hardware USB 2.0_  
_ Added 05.21.2010_  
_ Software installed 05.21.2010_

Roxanne grins. “Was that Megamind’s idea, or Minion’s?”

Nibs whirs for a minute. _ Insufficient data to generate response. _

“Either way, color me impressed.” And she is, really. She never would have expected Megamind to make the brainbots compatible with regular hardware.

_Input: _FLATTERY_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi  
Output: “_gratitude”_

Jo has come to stand behind Roxanne, staring at her computer. “It talks?”

“They’re programmed to respond to conversational syntax,” Roxanne says. “Most of them, anyway.” She drums her fingers on the desk for a moment, chewing her lip, then finally decides she might as well go ahead and ask. “Nibs, can you give me Megamind’s medical files? I want to know how much damage Hal might have caused.”

_Input: Locate: BioInfo_  
_ NameOf: Daddy_  
_ Ref: “_MetroManOffense” OR “_RRitchiDefense” OR “_RRitchiOffense”_  
_ CrossRef: “_BluntForceTrauma” AND “Sub_01” OR “Sub_02” OR “Sub_03” OR “Sub_04”_  
_ CrossRef: “_StructuralIntegrity” AND “Sub_01” OR “Sub_02” OR “Sub_03” OR “Sub_04”_  
_ Sub_01: “_Musculoskeletal”_  
_ Sub_02: “_Dermal”_  
_ Sub_03: “_Vascular”  
Sub_04: “_Neural”_

Jo watches the brainbot putter. “What are you doing?” she asks quietly, and Roxanne jumps.

“Nothing,” she replies, more sharply than she’d meant to.

_ AuthorizationCode? _

She frowns. Okay, that’s not unexpected, but it is annoying. “Nibs, I don’t have an authorization code.”

_ Access to desired information contingent upon AuthorizationCode. AuthorizationCode? _

“Can I override it?” she asks hopefully.

_ Override_AuthorizationCode: AuthorizationCode? _

“Yes.”

_Input _YES_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi_  
_ Invalid AuthorizationCode.  
Override_AuthorizationCode: AuthorizationCode?_

Roxanne bites down a groan of frustration. “Nibs, _ please_.”

_Input: _PLEASE_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi  
Output: “_apology”_

She sighs. “That’s okay, Nibs. Thanks anyway.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes for a minute. She could probably just ask Minion, but there’s a big difference between asking Minion—which will require a conversation, and probably an emotionally fraught one—and simply having the information in front of her where she can read it quietly. Unfortunately, the latter isn’t looking like a viable option.

Jo clears her throat. “Um. Roxie?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s still talking,” Jo says, pointing, and Roxanne lifts her head.

_Input: _PLEASE_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi_  
_ Output: “_reason.for.request”_  
_ Tone: query  
Tone_2: interested_

She laughs a little. “It’s okay, Nibs, really. I’m just…interested, yeah.”

_Input: _INTEREST_RE_DADDY_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi_  
_ Output: _reporting.capacity= “_negative”  
Tone: query_

“Yes, it’s…” She hesitates. Well, the truth will out eventually. “It’s a personal concern.”

_Input: _PERSONAL_CONCERN_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi_  
_ Output: “_consolation”  
Output_2: “_there.there”_

Jo laughs shakily. “Your supervillain programmed his robot army to be _ polite? _”

Roxanne has to smile at that. She forgets, sometimes, that she might be the only person other than Minion and Megamind who understands anything about the brainbots. “No, that’s all Nibs. Try telling him you’re concerned.” Jo looks dubious, but obeys. Nibs whirs for a moment.

_Input: _PERSONAL_CONCERN_  
_ InputSource: =unfamiliar_  
_ Output: “_who.are.you”_  
_ Tone: rhetorical_query_  
_ Output_2: “_get.lost”  
Tone: request_

Jo’s eyebrows disappear under her bangs.

“The brainbots are amazing,” Roxanne tells her, running her fingertips over Nibs’ blunt dorsal studs and making him curl his tail against her leg. “Most of the newer ones even have decision-making capabilities. Heuristic learning.” Ordinarily, she wouldn’t be quite this forthcoming about the bots, but they’re repairing the city—they’re everywhere right now and showing a startlingly high tolerance for humans who aren't Roxanne; it has to be safe to talk about them, at least a little. “If Nibs was current, I might be able to persuade him to give me the information I want.”

Jo regards her curiously for a minute. “What do you want with Megamind’s medical history?” she asks, and Roxanne winces.

“Well, you know. I’m. Worried, that’s all,” she says, and Jo’s eyebrows creep even higher. Before either of them can say anything more, Nibs beeps, and they look down.

_Input: _WORRIED_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi_  
_ Output: “_worried.re.daddy”  
Tone: query_

Roxanne hesitates. The last thing she wants to do is confirm to a coworker how worried she is about Megamind, even if the coworker in question is one of her friends.

_ Output: “_vocalize.response.re.previous.output”  
_ _ Tone: command _

“Is it…is it trying to give you _ orders? _” Jo is aghast.

“Looks that way,” Roxanne says slowly, eyes narrowing. The brainbots never do anything without a reason. Granted, sometimes the reason is boredom, but the point stands, and she doubts boredom is the catalyst here.

“What happens if you don’t do what it says?”

Roxanne shrugs. “Let’s find out.” And before Jo can stop her, she says clearly, “Nibs—no.”

_Input: _NO_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi_  
_ Output: “_please”  
Tone: urgent_

Roxanne frowns. "Huh. Okay, Nibs. Input re: previous output: Yes.”

_Input: _YES_  
_ Re: _worried.re.daddy_  
_ InputSource: =RRitchi_  
_ Command: _load_autosave:_RoxanneDictation06172010.23:57?sourcecode=classified_  
_ AuthorizationCode? “_YES ”=_re:_worried.re.daddy&?sourceid=RRitchi_  
_ AuthorizationCode: =TRUE_  
_ =run_cmd_prompt_003591.A_  
_ =_load_autosave:_RoxanneDictation06172010.23:57&?sourcecode=authorized_  
_ {_  
_ Roxanne, _  
_ I told Nibs to meet you at your office. Sending it to your home didn’t seem like a good idea. This is to let you know I’ll be keeping my head down for a bit, but I haven’t run off and I’ll probably turn up eventually. If you’re worried, which you won’t be, but in case you are, don't this is ridiculous I sound deranged. Nibs, strike previous to comma. I haven’t run off and I’ll probably turn up eventually. I’ll be fine. Hopefully, you are also fine. None of my business, I know, but I hope you’re okay. I instructed a few of the brainbots to keep an eye on you. I should have asked you, but there isn’t time. The override is 008921RR09 if you want it. Tell Nibs. It’ll let the others know. I’m sorry  
}_

By the time she gets to the end of this, Roxanne is glaring at the screen and biting both lips between her teeth so she won't cry. She can imagine Megamind sitting in the sterile detox chamber, dictating this disjointed memo to Nibs, keying it to her concern so she can only access it if she’s worried about him because he doesn’t want to overstep his bounds again. _ I should have asked you, but there isn’t time_. If she’s reading Nibs’ output correctly, the note was autosaved yesterday at three minutes to midnight, probably just before Megamind lost consciousness.

She remembers him lying pale and still on her bed, and Minion’s frantic circling, and a city bus, a flash of light, a cry of pain—cracks in the concrete where he hit the wall. She reads the note again. _ I’ll probably turn up eventually_, and that’s all it takes for the tears to spill over. It’s too much, in too short a time, on too little sleep.

_ Probably. _

Roxanne sniffs, swears, rubs her eyes, and then jumps when Jo puts an arm around her shoulders. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay. What’s wrong? Come here.”

Roxanne can only shake her head. “Bathroom,” she manages, and Jo nods and follows her, Nibs trailing along behind.

Once they’re away from the rest of the office and the door swings closed behind them, Jo turns Roxanne around to face her and hands her a roll of toilet paper, her round face concerned. “Roxie, tell me what’s wrong. What’s going on?”

Roxanne manages a damp smile. She really isn’t crying _ hard_, she’s just—worried and stressed and nothing is certain, and Megamind’s note put her over the edge for a moment. That’s all. Of course, that’s all. “I’m okay, it’s just. A lot to take in, you know?” She blows her nose.

“What is?” Jo peers at her. “You’re scaring me, hon. You’re not usually the crying type.”

Roxanne starts to answer, then stops. Jo is a columnist, basically another reporter—her trade is news, same as Roxanne.

But she’s also one of Roxanne’s closest friends and Roxanne knows her; she won’t stop worrying unless she has a satisfactory answer. And Roxanne trusts her. She needs to trust _ somebody_, and she already knows Jo is a good person to trust in a pinch.

So she lets out a shuddery breath. “This stays between us, okay?”

“You got it.”

“I’m serious, Jo, this does not leave this bathroom.”

Her friend gives her a thumbs-up. “Vow of silence, yes, I hear you.”

So Roxanne nods, sniffs, opens her mouth—and closes it again. She doesn’t want to say it. Saying it will make it true, and something in her still shies from that. 

But she’s an adult, with a job, with responsibilities, and hiding behind superstition is just not something she does, so she grits her teeth for a moment and gulps. And then she says, “Remember how I told you I was sort of dating Bernard? Museum guy with the fluffy hair, he was working with me on…on that one project I was doing?” Jo nods. “Okay, so, he’s…kind of in a coma. I’m not sure if he’ll…if he'll be okay.”

“Oh, _ no,_” Jo says, horrified. “Oh, Roxie, that’s _ awful_. I know how much you like him.”

“There’s more,” Roxanne tells her, and takes a deep breath, grimaces, and lets it out in a rush. “He is also Megamind in disguise. I found out two days ago.”

Jo’s sympathetic exclamations cut off abruptly and her eyes go wide. “_What? _”

“It was—I'm pretty sure it was my fault, really, I—I gave him the idea for Titan when he said reset buttons were impossible,” Roxanne can’t seem to _ stop _ talking, now, and she registers that she may be panicking just a little, “and then I broke into the Lair and—I think he only wanted me to leave without touching anything or breaking anything? and he saved me from the alligators, and then _ I told Hal _ Bernard was my partner and I just don’t think Bernard had any idea what to _ do _ with that, and _ then _ I told Ber—_Megamind _ I’d call him tomorrow and he said sure, okay, and, and then we were—we were working together trying to figure out Megamind’s latest evil plan? only we also sort of started dating at the same time? and—and now he’s _ hurt,_ he’s in this weird healing coma and Minion _ says _ he’ll be fine but Minion is also _ freaking out _ and I just—”

“Roxie.” Jo gives her shoulders a little shake. “Roxanne, honey. _ Breathe._ It’s okay, everything is okay, did he hurt you? Did he, god, did he touch you?”

“No.” She shakes her head. She had wondered, that night, how far Megamind would have taken the charade. At the time, she told herself he would have gone as far as he wanted, but that isn’t true and she knows it. “No, he wouldn’t, he would never. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Yes, okay, but we are talking about _ Megamind_, yes? Not Bernard?”

“That’s just it, they’re the _ same person_,” Roxanne exclaims. Megamind might not be an easy man to get to know, but Roxanne does know him, to some degree. “I think Bernard is…he’s everything Megamind can’t let himself be in front of people. I was thinking last night and…I think he is, Jo, I really do.” When Jo still looks doubtful, Roxanne sighs and forces herself to breathe. “How many years have I been getting kidnapped?”

“I think…ten? Ten-ish?”

“Yeah. And how many times has Megamind _ actually _carried through and hurt me? Even when Metro Man was late?” Jo frowns, and Roxanne nods. “He hasn’t. Not once.”

Jo shakes her head. “There was that time a few years back when he broke your arm. He tore you up pretty badly, as I recall.”

Roxanne closes her eyes. She remembers that, and she remembers the news report that aired afterwards. “Megamind didn’t break my arm. Metro Man’s lasers ricocheted and cut through the ropes I was hanging from. It was an accident. And I would have broken a lot more than my wrist if one of _ Megamind’s brainbots _didn’t catch me,” she adds, patting Nibs. “It’s not Megamind’s fault I got a little mangled in the process. Nibs can’t help it if he's sharp.”

Jo stares at her. “But the news said—”

“I was unconscious in the hospital afterwards. _ I _ didn’t write that report, I didn’t have any input at all, and—” _ And I asked Megamind afterward if he wanted me to set the record straight, and he declined_. “—and by the time anybody would listen to me, it was too late.” She bites her lip. “I could have broken my neck, you know. Easily. It was like a forty-foot drop.” She snorts in spite of herself. “You know? I don’t think he ever dangled me again, after that. Learned his lesson, I guess.”

Jo doesn’t seem to know where to go with this information. She leans against a sink, arms crossed over her chest, frowning. “Huh.”

Roxanne swallows. "And there were a few times, we talked and he seemed…I don't know. We _ talked_. He was…nice. Just a regular person, almost."

After a minute or so, Jo looks up at her. “You said Bernard told you all this recently? Two nights ago?”

“He didn’t tell me.” Roxanne hunches a little as she remembers the mess at the restaurant. “I found out.”

“Ah.” There is another long, stretching pause while Jo thinks, tapping her thumb against her lips. “But…you sound like you trust him," she finally says. “Even though he…he made you think he was someone different?”

Roxanne bites her lip. "I’d like to," she admits quietly. Because no, maybe she can’t trust Megamind not to hurt her—but she's pretty sure she can trust him not to _ want _ to hurt her, and that does matter. "I really, really do want to trust him. Is that crazy? Jo, am I crazy?" She’s doesn't think she is, but every time she stops and thinks about what she’s feeling, she has to wonder. And _is my serial kidnapper malicious or just an idiot _ isn’t something she can google.

“Maybe,” Jo says. “Are you worried?”

Roxanne nods.

“Confused?”

Another nod.

Jo shrugs. Her eyes are still big, but she looks like she’s doing her best to just take all this in stride. “Then, I think probably no? You want to trust him, you don’t know if you should…? That’s not crazy. And, you two do go way back. So.” She sticks her thumbnail between her teeth and worries at it for a moment, frowning a little. “So, you get to know him this way, as Bernard. So you don’t know if he would tell you the truth eventually? Yes?”

Roxanne sighs and nods. “That’s…yeah. I just don’t know.” Nibs bumps up under her elbow, whirring, and she strokes an absent hand over the metal brainbot’s gently scalloped dome. “I do want to trust him,” she says again. It’s something she’s still trying to get her head around. So is: “I…I _ did _ trust him. I think I still might, just…differently.” 

Jo grins and reaches out, gives her arm a quick squeeze. “Roxie, honey, you always want to trust people. But it makes sense to worry, to feel confused!” She leans her hip against the sink. “You said Minion brought him to you? Where he is now, Metro Hospital? Which branch?”

Roxanne shakes her head. “No, he’s in hiding, like he said. Keeping his head down. I don’t want to say where. You understand.”

Jo’s lips quirk into a little smile. “Of course. Yes. You try not to worry too much, okay? If Minion says he’ll be okay, I think he’ll be okay! And he says in his note, he’ll turn up eventually.”

“Probably,” Roxanne says. “He said he’d _ probably _turn up.”

Jo fumbles for a minute, then says firmly, “Well. You’ve done what you can do. Worrying helps nothing, so come on. We have work to do, work is a good distraction for you,” and she herds Roxanne back to her desk, then steals her mug to go get them both coffee from the break room.

And she’s right, work is a good distraction. It’s familiar, and comfortable, and there’s definitely more than enough interesting stories to go around. After a few emails and follow-ups and chance encounters with other coworkers, Roxanne is feeling much more confident about life in general. She calls the usual people on the assumption that she’s still the city’s resident authority on the local hero’s whereabouts (never mind that the “hero” status of this particular hero is still being debated by several million confused citizens). At this point, other reporters and news stations have mostly stopped questioning Roxanne Ritchi’s sources, so when she tells them Megamind has gone to ground in a secure location and is out of commission for the near future, nobody argues. A few even express concern regarding his well-being, and she makes sure to laugh and assure them that _ oh, no, he’ll be fine, he just needs time_, and she clings to this line until she almost believes it herself. 

Almost. Not quite. But by the end of the day, she is in better spirits.

“Hey,” Jo calls over their partition when she hears Roxanne packing up and shutting her computer down, “you want to go someplace for dinner? Get out for a while, meet some new people? _ Angela About Town _ is writing a good piece on Hop Kee, we could go.”

Roxanne hesitates. Going out would be nice, but she’d rather just head home. Heaven only knows what Minion has been up to all day, and what if Megamind’s condition has worsened? “No,” she says, “but thanks. I just want to go home and get some sleep. I was up kind of late last night.”

Jo laughs. “I bet you were. Okay, honey. Drive safe. If you need anything, call me. You know it doesn’t matter what time.”

“Thanks,” Roxanne says again, and reaches for her keys. Nibs follows her out to her car, bumping her arm for pats the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nibs is shaped like a friend


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> friends, I cannot express how stunningly strange it feels to be working with these words again

The drive home takes longer than it usually does. Usually any construction has been wrapped up or put on hold by the time Roxanne leaves the news station, so there isn't any traffic beyond the usual rush hour commuter congestion, but Megamind's brainbots show no signs of stopping. The streets are slow.

All the traffic signals are back. The sidewalks have been cleared of broken glass and debris. Store fronts are being repainted.

_The city doesn't even have to pay for any of this_, Roxanne realizes. _All the damage that can be fixed is being fixed. People have insurance. We're going to be okay._

_But the bots can't be allowed to keep doing everything, or they'll put us all out of jobs and the economy will collapse._

"We'll jump off that bridge when we come to it," she murmurs. There's no way Megamind doesn't understand basic economics. They'll be fine.

She waves hello to Carlos on her way over to the elevator. He seems none the worse for his brief stint as a glowing blue cube.

"Minion?" she calls, pushing her door open and blinking. "Hey, Minion?"

"Over here, Miss Ritchi."

Roxanne follows his voice into her kitchen area, looking around. "Minion, what on _Earth_ did you do to my apartment?"

He looks nervous. "Are you upset?"

"Upset?" she echoes. She probably should be, since she didn't tell him he could mess with her things, but she has to admit the place looks great. "Are you kidding? This is the cleanest it's been in ages. What did you do with all the old papers and stuff?" _And what smells so good?_

"Sorted them by subject and date and put them in file boxes in your closet. You really aren't angry?"

Roxanne smiles. "I'm really not, Minion. I promise. Thanks for cleaning up. You didn't have to."

And darned if the gorilla exosuit doesn't _shuffle its feet_ awkwardly. That's probably one of the cutest, strangest things Roxanne has ever seen, and she's seen some pretty strange stuff in her time. "Well, you know," he says, "it's the least I could do, with you sticking your neck out for us. Do you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies?"

She's laughing now. "No, I don't. Don't tell me you _cooked_."

"You have to eat," Minion protests. "And you know I cook all the time at Evil Lair. _He _won't, he doesn't have time. And he doesn't really get hungry. And he can't live off of doughnuts and packaged food even though I'm sure he would if I'd let him. Anyway, dinner tonight is gluten- and nut-free just in case. Also vegan. In case you're vegan."

Roxanne nearly dies. "_Minion!_"

"_What?_" he exclaims. "It wasn't any trouble! It was nice! I _like _cooking!"

She's laughing. "Okay, okay, but…Minion, I have eggs in my fridge! And chicken! How could I be vegan?"

When the exosuit shrugs, there's no mistaking the gesture. "_I_ don't know," he says. "I don't—it was a challenge? Gluten, nut, animal? I like challenges. I—oh! I could have kept it dairy-free, _too!_"

She comes forward to peer over his furry bicep at the pot on the stove. Well, all right. A challenge. She supposes that makes sense, if he puts it that way. Cooped up in an apartment all day, trying not to think about Megamind lying half-dead in the next room? She can't exactly blame him.

"But you're a carnivore," she points out. "What are _you _going to eat?"

"I'm a scavenger." His tone is conversational as he ladles cold yellow stew and spaghetti squash into bowls. "Well—no, I am a predator, sort of. I do prefer protein, especially when I'm stressed. But I will eat _anything_."

"All right," Roxanne says. "Still. You really didn't have to do this."

Minion flaps a hand at her. "Oh, go sit down, Miss Ritchi. I know I didn't have to."

"We could have ordered out. Chinese or something."

The indignant scowl Minion sends her is positively _parental_. "Have you any idea how many anti-nutrients there are in takeout? Of any kind? And it's so _unimaginative_."

He sits on the floor again, and Roxanne eyes him curiously. "There's room at the island," she offers.

"It's not like it makes a difference to me." Minion glances up at her briefly before digging into his dinner. Roxanne's silverware looks incongruously small in his huge hands, but he holds his fork with all the poise of an aristocrat. "I receive tactile input from this body's sensors, but whether I sit on the floor or in a chair doesn't make any difference since I don't get stiff or cramped. I'd have to stay in the same position for _weeks_ before the hydraulics would start to gum up. Besides, I'll break your chairs."

Roxanne looks at him for a minute, looks at her bowl, then pushes away her chair and comes to sit cross-legged on the floor next to him. He blinks down at her, embarrassed.

"Miss Ritchi, you don't have to—"

"Quiet, you. Solidarity. Besides, it's fun to switch things around every now and again." She chews, swallows, raises an eyebrow. "This is good. What's in it?"

"Oh, you know." Minion waves a hand vaguely. "Good things. Garlic, tomatoes, beans, spinach, corn. Arugula. Sunflower seed butter. Sweet potatoes. A bunch of other stuff."

Roxanne frowns. "I had sunflower seed butter and arugula?"

"No, I went out earlier and got them. There's a great little shop down on Sixth." He taps a dial on his suit when she looks confused. "Disguise generator, remember?"

It will be useless to tell him he doesn't have to do all this, she can tell, so she just thanks him again and changes the subject. "Minion, you said last night, you and Megamind fell through Earth's atmosphere and bounced. It got me thinking…you guys are pretty tough, but is there any way we could contact your home world and ask them for input on how to care for him? Did he ever build anything like that? A, a super-telephone or something?"

Minion swallows hard and stops eating, looks at her for a long moment.

_I said something wrong_, she thinks. He's gone very still. But she doesn't know how to fix it without knowing what she said.

A small eternity passes. Finally Minion asks, "Metro Man never told you?"

Roxanne shakes her head. Minion sighs and drops more squash into the top of his dome. "Our home world fell into a black hole," he says, and that—takes a second to sink in. Roxanne is still blinking at that as he continues, "Sir's parents sent us here when the sun collapsed. This was the closest planet with intelligent life that was atmospherically compatible with our biological processes. There were fifteen other candidates."

"Oh," she stammers. "Oh, I'm…I'm so sorry." Wow. There isn't much else she can think of to say to that except _holy shit_, but that won't be helpful. She'll have to finish processing that later, probably. That's…wow. Their _sun_ collapsed? Their sun collapsed and dragged at least two planets with sentient life into oblivion. What the hell. What even the hell.

For a while, she and Minion eat their food in silence.

Then, out of the blue, Minion gives a little laugh. "Sixteen candidates, and they send him to the one planet Metro Man's parents send _him _to. What are the odds?"

"Assuming Metro Man's parents were considering the same sixteen planets? Less than half a percent." Then, when she notices Minion blinking at her, she smiles slyly. "What? Did you think I can't do math?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Most humans can't do that without a calculator."

She snorts. "Most _can_, they just don't know how. Mom got me a great tutor when I was little and having trouble with my homework. Ms. Krishnan taught me a lot of good shortcuts with math problems and she made me practice until I could do it in my sleep. It's not so special if you know how to do it, but I caught hell for it in school."

Minion looks at her in surprise again. "Really?"

She nods, shrugs a little bit. "It got better after I got older and learned to hide it." She wrinkles her nose. "If there's one thing kids can't stand, it's someone who's smarter than them and acts like a know-it-all." Easier to just blend in, galling though it was sometimes.

"Or someone who's smarter than them and blue," Minion mutters.

"That would…oh!" _So _that's _what Bernard was talking about_.

"What?"

"Nothing," she says hastily, "nothing, just something Bernard said. Megamind said." She lets out a groan of frustration. "Oh, that's _really _starting to get on my nerves."

Minion frowns down at her nervously. "What is?"

Roxanne is scowling. "I just can't get it through my head that it was Megamind saying those things! I mean, I know it was him the whole time, but I still remember him as Bernard and…ugh, it's like I can't get the two to synchronize." She releases a long breath, trying to stay relaxed as everything else comes crashing down to earth.

There's so much to worry about, so much she can't do anything about except sit and wait for something to change. Roxanne _hates_ waiting. "And I told my friend Jo about Bernard a while back, and today I explained about the whole fiasco because she was getting worried and I needed to talk to someone. Jo took it okay, but god, who knows what my _mother _will say when I tell her the guy I was dating turned out to be a supervillain in disguise." She rolls her eyes. "Especially that particular supervillain."

"Do you have to tell her?"

"I already told her about Bernard," she sighs. "When I tell her it didn't work out, which I'll have to do at some point, she'll want to know why. I guess I'll just lie to her, but…what am I going to tell her about Megamind?"

"Nothing," Minion suggests, but Roxanne shakes her head.

"You saw how quickly everyone assumed Metro Man and I were an item. It'll take a little longer with Megamind, but they'll catch on eventually."

"Assumed," Minion echoes, and frowns. "What do you mean, _assumed?_"

"Like I told Ber—rrgh, _Megamind_. Metro Man and I never actually dated. It was just…" She shrugs. "Easier for both of us if everyone thought we were a couple. When the tabloids started publishing things about us…we let them. Never bothered to correct them."

Minion tips sideways in his dome, his equivalent of cocking his head. "I don't see what's easier about that."

Roxanne bites her lip. "Well…people mostly left us alone if we were together, and we always had a plus-one for social functions, and…" She sighs. "Minion, I have a very high-visibility job. Higher, being Megamind's regular kidnappee. Metro Man was also very high-visibility, and…we both got a lot of attention. Creepy attention. Unwanted. A lot of that decreased when we started appearing in public together." She shrugs again, a little embarrassed to actually be admitting all this out loud. It sounds so mercenary, now. "Granted, we started getting _different_ creepy attention, but not as much."

He frowns. "But what if you wanted to go on a date?"

Roxanne hesitates. "I was…taking some time off. From dating. For me. It never really came up." She hurries forward. "And it was good for my career. I made a lot of solid connections, going to events with Metro Man. _And _it got my mom off my back." She makes an exasperated _tchhh _in the back of her throat and lets her spoon clatter against her bowl. "Now she'll wait the requisite six months to a year and then start trying to set me up with eligible doctors and lawyers."

Minion considers this. "Okay, so just tell her the truth."

"I can't do _that_," says Roxanne, appalled. "She hates Megamind, she always has. Forget dating him, the fact that I'm even on good terms with him will send her through the roof." She pauses, swallows. "Speaking of Megamind. How is he?"

"The same," Minion tells her with a little sigh. "No changes that I could see."

For a few minutes, they eat in silence. Roxanne's apartment is large, and her kitchen is spacious enough to allow them both to sit comfortably in the middle of the hardwood floor.

"Minion, I was thinking earlier," Roxanne says, and stops. She really, _really _doesn't want to say it, but she has to prepare for the worst. Ignoring the worst possible outcome leaves you unprepared when it comes crashing down around you.

"Yes?"

She forces the words out. "What if he's hurt inside? You saw those bruises. Those are _nasty_. I'm no expert, but I'm willing to bet he's got a bunch of cracked ribs, probably some broken. What if he's…what if he's bleeding internally? What if he has a concussion? What if his brain swells? What if his body runs out of fuel to heal?" She ought to be more delicate with her phrasing, she knows—Minion has gone pale and his fins are stiff—but she's worried and scared. Tact falls by the wayside in the face of worry and fear. "Minion, what if—what if he dies?"

Minion looks at his hands, big and heavy and useless in his lap. He knows. He's thought the same thing, over and over today. "If he dies," he says slowly, "your world will keep turning. You'll move on."

"Eventually, maybe, but I don't…" She swallows. "I don't _want _to move on. I _liked _being with—Megamind. And what about you?" She looks at him. "What will you do?"

"Please don't ask me that." His face scrunches. "Please, Miss Ritchi. I don't want to think about that. I don't know what I'll do."

There's a pause. And then a small hand pokes into his field of vision, wraps itself over a big metal finger, and he looks around to find Roxanne smiling up at him. Her eyes are bright, and her lips are thin. "Okay, Minion. Okay. We'll just—stick together, then, you and me." She leans over to rest her forehead against his furry arm, staring down at the floor so the tears will run down her nose and Minion won't see. "We'll take care of each other, right? Until he wakes up. We'll manage."

Minion curls his fingers closed around her hand. "Until he wakes up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minion is shaped like the MOST friend


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is probably the one that changed the most in this fic. Definitely for the better, it's much stronger now!

**Chapter 5**

And they manage very well for the next few days. Roxanne sleeps on the couch for two more nights, but she has to return to her bed when she starts waking up with shooting pains in her lower back. She points out to Minion, who hadn't said anything and wasn't intending to, that it doesn't _really _matter because Megamind is unconscious and her bed is big enough for at least three people.

(What she doesn't say is it's nice to have someone else there when she jumps awake from dreams of falling and fire, even if that someone is unconscious. Minion has been there, too, after a fashion, but…he's in a tank. It's different.)

Minion continues to cook and clean despite Roxanne's constant protests, and it becomes almost a ritual between the two of them—Roxanne comes home from work and finds his latest home improvement, insists he didn't have to, and he in turn insists she not worry about it and sit down and eat. Before long, her once-empty fridge is stocked with "enough leftovers to feed an army," as she says, due to Minion's habit of making far too much for the two of them.

And during the day, she goes to the office or out on assignment, since her boss can't deny that she certainly seems fine, and so can't give any valid reason to keep her inside ("Carl, the FMLA is only applicable if I _ask _for my 12 weeks, please stop bugging me about this, I am _busy_"). Jo is increasingly comfortable around the brainbots, which is good, because one of the newer bots seems to be taking an interest in her. She also gets it into her head to try to fix Roxanne up with someone new, hoping it will help. ("What about Walt, in accounts payable? No? Tippy, then. She's cute! She's nice! You like cute and nice!") Roxanne laughingly deflects her good-natured attempts, making any excuse she can think of to come home early.

Megamind sleeps through it all.

On Sunday, while Roxanne is in clocking up overtime trying to fix the utter _mess _Titan made of KMCP's contact database, the mayor's office calls with good news: Megamind has been issued a full pardon, conditional on his giving up all supervillainous activities. Startled, Roxanne assures them that she'll pass this along, then calls Mayor Gray directly for a high-level fact check. The two of them dance in conversational circles for a while, each trying to figure out how much the other one knows, until he finally tells Roxanne—off the record—about a mysterious, lengthy phone call he received from someone who sounded _suspiciously similar_ to the late Wayne Scott. This news does wonders for both Roxanne's nerves and her attitude toward Metro Man. She goes home earlier than usual to tell Minion, who is so excited that the saucepan and wooden spoon he's holding both go through an open window and clatter onto the roof of the building next door. Roxanne really laughs for the first time in what feels like weeks.

Dinner is halfway done that night when her doorbell buzzes. Minion retreats quietly to her bedroom and Roxanne goes to the door, intending to tell the nice vacuum repairman for the third time, "thank you, we're all set here."

What comes out is, "Thank…Jo?" She stammers for a second, surprised and immediately tense. Jo's expression is friendly but guarded, which is something of a rarity and likely means this isn't a purely social visit. She has a goal in mind. Roxanne bars the doorway, holding the door in one hand and the frame in the other, leaning on her elbow in a way she hopes looks casual. "What are you doing here?"

Jo holds out Nibs, and Roxanne is so dumbfounded that she lets go of the doorframe to take the brainbot. "The little guy wouldn't leave me alone, and you weren't answering your cell. I thought something might be wrong." Nibs _bowgs _at Roxanne once, flashing its lights. It's completely calm now. "Is everything okay?"

Roxanne freezes, which doesn't happen often. Jo takes advantage of her shock to push her gently aside and wander into the apartment, where she promptly stops and stares around.

"Did you move the furniture? Where are all your papers? And wow, what is—Roxie, you're _cooking?_"

Roxanne leaves the door open, a pointed _you're-not-welcome_ sign, and follows her in. "Yes, we moved some furniture around, and the magazines and newspapers have been sorted. Listen, Jo, this really…" She trails off, cocks her head. Jo's expression is almost accusatory. "What?"

"Roxie, why are you hiding them from me?"

Roxanne's stomach flips over and she nearly drops the brainbot in her arms. As it is, she barely manages to set it down on a side table. Doesn't make much difference; Nibs lifts off into the air as soon as she lets go of it. "I—what? Who? Hide who?"

"Your new _squeeze_," Jo says flatly. "You said, _we_ moved the furniture? And, honey, you've cleaned, rearranged everything, and now you're cooking. Either you're dating someone or you have one heck of a nesting instinct. Are you pregnant?"

"Wha—_no_, I'm not—"

"Then I want to meet them," Jo says, and raises her voice, twists her head to the side to call over her shoulder. "Hey! Hey, Roxanne's new friend! Come on out!"

Roxanne grabs her by the arms. "_Jo_," she exclaims, appalled. Are her ears on fire? Her ears feel like they're on fire. "Jo, _please_, now is _not_ a good time, we can talk tomorrow at work."

Jo studies her friend's face, frowning harder. "What's wrong? They're jealous?" She looks Roxanne over carefully, and then her eyes fall on the brand-new burn on Roxanne's wrist and she lets out a gasp. "_That's_ why you've been leaving early and coming straight home?"

"No," Roxanne insists, releasing Jo in her agitation and running her hands backwards through her hair. She loves her friend, really she does, but Jo has an overdeveloped sense of drama and tends to leap to the worst possible conclusions. Granted, she does have her reasons where Roxanne is concerned, _but still_.

She glares at the burn. It isn't even that big, and seriously, definitely not evidence of abuse. "I—I got that cooking, and he's _not _my—okay, _maybe?_" She shakes her head, trying to figure out what to say. She finally settles on, "It's not what you think."

Jo just looks at her, expression flat. "Roxie. I am worried."

"Okay," Roxanne says, unconsciously echoing Metro Man, "okay okay okay. Listen to me for a minute, Jo, please. Yes, my—boyfriend is over, but today is a very bad day for you to come and visit because he's sick. With the flu. Can't get out of bed, so I'm making dinner because he's one of those health food nuts and apparently there are anti-nutrients in takeout—_anti-nutrients?_ I ask you—and you _know _I can't cook worth a damn, and that's how I got the burn." She tries to take Jo by the shoulders, tries to steer her towards the door. "And so now you have to leave. _Now_."

Jo clamps her lips together and plants her feet, shaking Roxanne off and turning back around. Roxanne is pale and glaring, but her fists are clenched and her shoulders squared. A couple of half-steps and Jo establishes that the "sick" boyfriend—which she does not believe for a second, thankyouverymuch—is in the bedroom, since Roxanne keeps moving to place herself between Jo and the bedroom door.

But as stubborn as Roxanne is, Jo is more stubborn and stronger, and she lays down her trump card. "Remember Chad?"

"This is _nothing like _that." But that's only sort of true, and she can't really blame Jo for not believing her. Roxanne is behaving almost exactly like she used to back when she was living with Chad—defensive, pretending nothing is wrong, all the while repeating a litany of _leave now, you have to go, _because if he comes back or wakes up and finds Jo there, he'll be furious.

"Roxanne, you've been vulnerable lately with Wayne dead and—and the whole Bernard problem. It's okay. But you cannot keep going for these bad boy types." She forges ahead, refusing to let Roxanne protest. "_They will hurt you_. Remember? You can't trust them?"

"What happened to, 'it's okay to be scared and worried and confused'?" Roxanne demands, moving to cut her off yet again. "And he is _not _a bad boy, he just thinks he is." _And wouldn't he just love to hear me say that_, she adds silently. _He'd hate it. So proud_.

It's the wrong thing to say; Jo's eyes go wide. The last thing Roxanne needs is a wannabe badass with something to prove. "Okay, that is _it_," she says flatly, and she tries to push past Roxanne.

"_No!_" Roxanne steps to the right and catches Jo's outstretched arm and her shirt, but that's as far as she gets before Jo swings her captive arm around in a tight circle and sweeps her other up to connect just above Roxanne's elbow, then shoves out and down. Roxanne skips back, but keeps her feet apart and her center of gravity low. She's glad her feet are bare—if she were wearing socks, she would have slid on the floor and maybe fallen, and she can't afford to fall.

Megamind saved her life. More than once, really. And she _will _protect him now. If Minion is right, if her apartment truly is the only safe place in Metro City he could bring Megamind…

She trusts Jo with her emotional upsets. But trusting her with Megamind's location when he can't defend himself, when he's set the brainbots' tolerance for civilians as high as it is right now, is a different kettle of fish.

"Did you _seriously_," Jo says, startled and staring, "just try to one-arm throw me?"

"Maybe." Roxanne grimaces, her stomach churning with anxiety. "Jo, please. Please, just go. He's not hurting me."

Jo sighs. "Look, Roxie. I get it, and I'll make it up to you, I promise. But I am your friend, and you _know_ why I'm worried, and I hope you'll do the same for me if I'm ever in your situation—"

Roxanne backs up a step as Jo moves forward. "There isn't a situation! I'm not in a situation!"

"Okay! Okay, then just—please, talk to me!" Jo bites her lip. "Baby, you are _freaking me out_."

Roxanne throws out a hand. "Wait. Just. Wait a sec, please, let me think."

Frowning worriedly, Jo waits.

Roxanne thinks frantically. There's no way she can hope to block Jo if she wants to get through; Jo is smaller than she is but much, much stronger—Minion was cutting green onions while watching TV earlier that day and the cutting board and chef's knife are still lying on the coffee table—after almost a decade of being swept up in harebrained scheme after harebrained scheme, her threshold for what constitutes "overkill" is extremely high—

But not quite that high. No. Come on, Roxanne, think! Jo is another reporter and as far as she knows, Megamind is a supervillain, cold-blooded, a criminal and a dangerous one at that. But Jo also cares about her, has showed up at Roxanne's home ready to haul her out of a potentially bad situation with all the grace of a steamroller because that's what worked last time. She's usually willing to go with Roxanne on things when she isn't so worried about them. And she said, earlier this week when Roxanne told her about Megamind, she doesn't think Roxanne is crazy for wanting to trust him…

"Roxie," Jo says quietly, breaking into her thoughts, "I can go if you really want me to. But I will worry. You haven't been like you all week. Is—if it isn't a boyfriend, then—trauma? From Titan?" She glances sideways at the kitchen, her expression doubtful, but seizing on cleaning and cooking as an outlet for stress is hardly the strangest outlet she's ever heard of. "You're being secretive, that is not like you, it is _scaring_ me."

Screw it. Sometimes you just have to make a leap of faith. Minion is here and Megamind has a robot army at his command; Nibs is here too and Nibs is connected to the robot army and if they need to make a quick getaway, Minion can tell Nibs to tell the other brainbots to come with the hoverbike or something.

"Fine," she says flatly. "Come on."

As she opens her bedroom door, she snaps, "Minion. De-gun me," and holds up her hands, hoping he'll get it. She knows he must have it on him somewhere; Megamind never goes anywhere without it and she's sure Minion won't have left it behind at the Lair. Right now she's just praying he trusts her enough to—

To her total shock, there's a scuffling sound in the shadows across her room, and then something blue-green and glowing comes arcing toward her. Roxanne catches the de-gun in both hands and walks over to sit on the bed at Megamind's shoulder, spinning the barrel the way she's seen Megamind do approximately a million times until it lands on de-hydrate. The gun is heavier than she thought it would be, but it fits in her hand like it belongs there.

Jo hovers in the doorway, blinking at her. The light from the main room hits Roxanne's carpet in a bright line over to where she's sitting on the edge of her bed, but she has blackout curtains so it's pretty impossible to see much about why she's chosen to sit there.

"What is that?" Jo asks cautiously, her eyes on the gun in Roxanne's hand. "That—it looks like—"

There's another scuffling sound from the other side of the bed and Jo jumps and looks around, startled. And then something goes _click_, and the room is abruptly flooded with warm yellow light from one of Roxanne's bedside lamps.

Jo, who was still staring wildly around for the source of the sound, sees Minion first and lets out a little scream and falls back a step, staring. Roxanne sighs.

"So—so that's—a fish? or a monkey?"

"Gorillas are apes," Roxanne says, terse with stress. "But _that's_ a robotic body. Neuro-controlled cyberkinetics. _He_ is Minion, he mostly operates behind the scenes. Minion, meet Jo Andrada, one of my very best friends."

"Hi," Jo manages.

"She's trying to protect me," Roxanne continues. "Thinks my _boyfriend_," she doesn't bother hiding her sarcasm, "might be hurting me."

Minion sounds very confused. "But we never hurt you."

Roxanne holds up her injured wrist by way of explanation, and the mortified expression on Minion's face actually helps Jo's peace of mind a lot. "I _said _I was sorry! I didn't realize you were right behind me and then you said hey and I jumped and I _said _I was sorry!"

"Wait, so—that—_that's _your boyfriend?" Jo stammers, still gazing fixedly at Minion. "Neuro-whatsit terminator fish monkey. Ape. Thing?"

Slowly forcing herself to relax and lower the de-gun, Roxanne pulls one of Megamind's long hands into her lap, presses her fingers to his narrow wrist so she can feel his fluttering pulse against her skin. His breathing sounds much deeper now than it did on that first day, and most of his color has returned. She exhales. Tries to calm down.

She probably has nothing to worry about, and she can't imagine actually dehydrating Jo, but—what if she decides to go to the police? Or someone else? Pardon or no pardon, Roxanne can't imagine Megamind's relationship with the MCPD is particularly stellar, and Minion's earlier concerns about what could happen to Megamind if the government gets its hands on him while he's incapacitated probably weren't entirely unfounded. She points the gun at the floor, but keeps her finger resting along the trigger guard just in case.

"No," she says, because Minion just looks politely repulsed, "no, Minion and I are not romantically involved," and Jo finally tears her eyes away from the icthyoid.

With the lights on, her gaze runs from Roxanne to Megamind's still form and stays there, and Roxanne deliberately interlaces her fingers with Megamind's much longer ones. Never mind what is and isn't—she hasn't talked to Megamind yet about what they are to each other, but for once, fuck it, never mind the labels. Megamind is hers more than anyone else's—except Minion's—and Jo might as well draw her own conclusions for the time being.

Jo looks back at Roxanne and the tension ebbs out of her shoulders as everything clicks. "_Oh_," she says, and Roxanne knows that tone; she relaxes. "Oh for heaven's _sake_. Why didn't you just _tell_ me?"

Roxanne feels her face scrunch up like a scared child's, like Minion's when she asked him _what if he dies_, and she will not cry, she will _not _cry because Jo isn't freaking out that she let a supervillain and his sidekick stay in her apartment unattended, or that the supervillain is in her bed, she is not trying to drag Roxanne away and stick Megamind behind bars, and it's such an unexpected relief to have someone else in the loop that it almost hurts.

After a long silence, during which Minion is thoroughly confused, Jo comes forward to stand at the side of the bed and blink down at Megamind's pointed face. "He doesn't look _so_ bad," she says, and the rest of the tension in the room dissipates. Roxanne chuckles weakly and puts the de-gun down on the bedside table.

"You didn't see him on Monday." She hooks a finger in Megamind's shirt collar and pulls it down and to the side. The worst of his bruises have turned a sick greenish color, but she's pretty sure that's the human equivalent of yellow and it means he's healing.

Jo purses her lips. "How hurt was he? Really, I mean."

Roxanne just shakes her head.

"The worst I've ever seen him," Minion says, and Jo jumps. "He looks a lot better now."

Jo reaches out, glancing from Roxanne to Minion. "Do you mind if I…?"

Minion blinks, but Roxanne shrugs. "Sure, see what you think." She swallows. "It's okay, Minion, she knows what she's doing."

"Don't know why I'm surprised about all this, you have no survival instinct," Jo mutters, reaching forward to grip Megamind's jaw and rock the bone gently from side to side, nodding her approval when his head turns with it. "Did you honestly think you could throw me?" She tilts his head to the side and runs her fingers over the back of his skull, feeling for irregularities and finding none. Then she notices the bundle supporting Megamind's neck and stifles a grin, but her eyebrows give her away. "You gave him Mars?"

Roxanne colors. "Well we had to use _something_."

"So you gave him Mars," Jo says, shaking her head.

"Mars?" Minion asks.

"The dog," Jo explains, pointing at the ragged stuffed animal sticking out from between Megamind's shoulder and ear. "Roxanne's had him since she was a baby. Nobody, and I mean _nobody_, touches Mars. Except, I think," and she turns to send a significant grin in Roxanne's direction, "for Megamind. Care to explain?"

"This means nothing," Roxanne insists. "I'm an adult, I'm not half as possessive of my things anymore. Drew was exaggerating when he told you all that."

Another snort from Jo tells her she isn't buying that, either. "Okay."

"Um, Miss Andrada," Minion says. "What, exactly, are you doing?"

Jo has folded the covers back and is in the process of unbuttoning Megamind's shirt. "You know what I did before I came back to school for journalism?" she asks Minion without looking up. "I was a registered nurse in the AFP. And I tell you what, I…what in fuck _hell_, Roxanne." She pulls back as the shirt falls open, staring openly. "Have you _seen _this?"

Roxanne winces. "I…tried not to."

"Good _lord_," Jo exclaims. "This is incredible!" She's torn between horror at the mess of bruises—_definitely some broken ribs under there_—and intrigue at how much seems to have healed already. Intrigue wins out. "_Titan _did all this? What was that, a week ago? Never mind the damage, how fast does this guy _heal?_"

"Really quickly," Minion tells her. "We're pretty tough."

"I'll say." Jo's eyebrows have disappeared again. "He should have these x-rayed, though."

"He's had broken ribs before, Miss Andrada." Both women look up at Minion in surprise. He shrugs. "When he was twelve. And again when we were fifteen, after our first real battle with Scott. I don't think Scott realized how badly he could physically hurt Sir until it was too late. It was…bad. Not as bad as this, but it was the only time I ever saw the Warden sit vigil with him."

"Scott?" Jo echoes, but Roxanne blinks.

Excited, she points towards the window. "Minion, would Wayne know if something could be done for Megamind?"

It's Minion's turn to blink. "I doubt it," he says, and he certainly sounds dubious. "Even if he _could _help, and I very much doubt he would if he could…unless you're into necromancy, I don't really see how you could get Metro Man's hypothetical input. And I wouldn't trust it if you could."

It takes a minute for Roxanne to figure out why the usually-friendly little alien sounds so _bitter_, and then she remembers the few things Wayne told her about when he and "Blue" went to school together as children. Small wonder Minion wouldn't harbor any good feelings towards the person who pretty much singlehandedly destroyed any hope of human friendship his charge might have had.

"Right," she says quietly. "Sorry, Minion."

He waves the apology aside. "'S okay, Miss Ritchi. I know you liked him."

"Okay!" Jo exclaims, and the other two jump and look around at her. Megamind's shirt is back in place and she's backing toward the door. "So. I think I should head home, huh? Minion, it was…ah, it was nice meeting you." She swallows, then steps around the bed and sticks out her hand to shake.

He looks at it, then back up at her face. "If I didn't know better, Miss Andrada, I would say you think you aren't going to stay for dinner."

Roxanne hides a smile.

Jo's mouth opens, then closes. "What?"

"You're staying for dinner, of course. It's the first time I've done anything with beef tongue, and I need somebody other than Miss Ritchi to tell me how it is, because she won't tell me if it's bad."

"Minion, _nothing _you make is bad."

"You see? I need an unbiased control group."

Roxanne rolls her eyes. "And we're into the experiment analogies. All right, you two. Out we go," and she drags Jo out of the room. Minion turns out the light, then follows, pulling the door shut after him.

Megamind sleeps on.

* * *

Getting ready for bed, Roxanne has to admit she feels a lot more relaxed now someone else knows about Megamind. That Jo is okay with the idea of Roxanne and Megamind potentially being together in the future is also reassuring. 

She replays the conversation they had in the hall just before Jo left to go home after dinner and drinks and about twenty rounds of Boggle (Minion won almost every time).

"You're sure you don't care?"

Jo hugged her. "Honey, you were ready to protect him no matter what it took. Including shoot me with a ray gun."

"Just dehydration," Roxanne protested, but Jo just grinned at her.

"Say what you will, okay, I know you better than that. You don't get that way about just anybody."

"I owe him my life," Roxanne argued. "It's only fair I defend his."

Jo sighed. "Let me ask you. When you found out the truth about who he was, what did you say? What was your reaction?"

Roxanne gaped for a minute, trying to gage where Jo was going with this. "I…I ran. He followed me, said something cliché about explaining everything. Something about judging books by their covers, and I said to judge people by their actions…" That wasn't what Jo meant, and Roxanne knew it. She bit her lip. "I asked if he really thought I'd ever be with him. He said no. I left."

Jo frowned. "Do you regret it?"

No need to think about that one. "Of course."

"Good," Jo said, surprising her. "Good, because that's a horrible thing to say. To anybody. But, about judging people by their actions." Her dark eyes narrowed. "You said last week, 'Bernard' was…how did you say it? Everything Megamind can't let himself be in front of people? Okay, so whose actions are you going to judge?"

Roxanne let out a long breath. "Okay."

"And he makes you happy?"

She nods.

"Good," said Jo again. "After all the crap you've been through, this year, you deserve to be happy! So, what, you're worrying over whether you _should_ or not? He makes you happy. Just go with it." Then she smirked. "You aren't worried over what people say, are you?"

Roxanne laughed. "Well. Just you."

"I hope so," said Jo, grinning. "Okay, girl. Work is early tomorrow and some of us need sleep tonight. Ciao."

And, really, she had a point. Whether Roxanne _should _feel X or Y isn't important. The facts are the facts, whether or not they should be, and how she feels about Megamind isn't something she can just deny because she thinks she maybe should.

And she _doesn't _think she should. But it's nice to have that validated, out loud, by somebody who isn't Minion.

It will be difficult, but since when has her life been easy? For that matter, when has Megamind's life been easy?

_Difficulty_, she thinks, _will not be a problem._

Roxanne puts the glowing de-gun out in the living room next to Minion, who's already asleep in his castle in the carapace of his suit, and then she turns out her lights and crawls into bed, where she falls asleep to the sound of Megamind's slow, steady breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jo is also shaped like a friend, provided the friend in question is shaped like a small bulldozer.


	6. Chapter 6

Megamind knows it's 5:27 AM on Tuesday without having to open his eyes. He knows he still hurts a little despite the fact that his broken ribs have knit and his muscles are no longer torn. He knows he's not in Evil Lair, and he knows he's not in Metro Jail. Wherever he is has almost-silent central air conditioning—recently repaired, judging by the lack of irregularity in the faint hum—and smells of shampoo and lavender.

Regarding where he is, that's the sum total of what he knows at this point in time. It isn't much to go on.

He inhales experimentally, clenches and unclenches his hands, wiggles his toes. Okay. He can move. He can move and he's not in excruciating pain, so. That's good.

Whatever he is lying on is soft, and he spends nearly six whole seconds trying to figure out what it is. He establishes fairly quickly that it is a bed and he is lying on the left-hand side, but if the mattress is on a box spring then it's probably covered in several layers of feathers. Possibly that memory-foam stuff. Possibly both.

He frowns, prods at the mattress with the fingers of his left hand because his right feels inexplicably heavy, moving as little as possible and keeping his eyes closed.

Scratch that. _Definitely _both.

Okay, what is he _wearing?_ It is _not _his suit, that's for sure, although without moving around more he won't be able to tell what it is.

Last to come to his attention—and that annoys him, because really, it should have been first—is that, holy god, someone is in the bed _with him_. That's almost enough to send him scrambling for higher ground right then and there, but he stays where he is with an effort and rolls his head to the right. And opens his eyes.

_Dark_, he thinks, and then, _Oh, yes, _very _astute, "dark." Well _done_, super-genius. It's 5:27AM and you're indoors; of course it's going to be dark_.

Sarcasm aside, he's in a soft bed in a dark place with central air, and it doesn't quite smell like a hotel room. It smells lived-in. It actually smells _familiar_, and his nostrils flare briefly as he tries to place it before he finally decides he's had enough. He rolls his head to the other side, noting something scratchy and strange on the back of his neck, and waves his hand around until it hits something. _Aha_, he thinks. _Desk lamp_.

He makes sure to muffle the _ch-click_ as best he can when he tugs the cord, then blinks as his eyes adjust to the sudden light (energy saving bulb, 12-watt, and he doesn't have to think about how he knows it). Okay. Ordinary lamp, ordinary bedside table. Moving carefully so he won't disturb the bed's other occupant before he's ready to defend himself if he needs to, he pulls the scratchy thing out from under his neck and peers at it, confused.

It looks like a stuffed…dog? Is it a dog? If it is, it's a very old, very well-loved one. One-eyed and ragged, the way it sticks its tongue out at him strikes him as being very cheeky.

_This is weird_.

And then he tips his head back over and looks to his right again, and that is when the weird factor _skyrockets_, goes _through the roof_, because that's _Roxanne _lying next to him, close against his side without actually touching, all curvy and soft and sleepy and _warm_, and the reason his right hand won't move is because she's got hold of it.

He snaps his head back to its original position, unaware that his grip on the stuffed thing is white-knuckled and he is clutching it to his aching chest.

[[art by the marvelous massivelyminute from the LJ community in the old days](https://megamind-movie.livejournal.com/1742321.html#cutid1)]

_This is exactly how I want to start the next chapter of my life_, he thinks dizzily. _With a panic attack and eleven million questions_.

He doesn't mind the 'waking up next to Roxanne' bit. _That _is actually rather pleasant once the initial shock wears off a little, and he thinks he wouldn't mind maybe getting used to it before he remembers there is no chance of that happening at all, ever.

Well.

A very small chance. He _is _in her bed. Presumably she's the one who put him there.

5:29 AM. What's the last thing he remembers? Ah, yes, the detox chamber, dictating that disjointed letter to Nibs because he remembered she was fond of Nibs, and thinking how very awkward he sounded—not like himself at all, disorganized and almost rambling, and _she's going to hate me for this _so he added the part about how to call off the brainbots.

Did he apologize? He can't remember, which unsettles him. He's accustomed to being able to remember quite literally everything. He remembers he had _meant _to. Well, even if he did, he probably ought to again. Several times.

And then it is 5:30 and everything is shrieking and panicky loud and he bolts upright with a scream.

"_Ow_," Roxanne yelps, "_ow, stoppit_," and Megamind realizes he's crushing her hand. Another mortified noise escapes him and he almost flings her hand away, and then he freezes because now he's hurt her physically and he is just sleep-muddled and disoriented enough to think that hurting Roxanne even by accident will bring on the end of the world. Roxanne flips over and bats frantically at her alarm clock, and for a few more seconds, all is just absolute chaos.

Finally she just rips the damned thing out of the wall and flings it across the room. It lands in a pile of extra blankets and pillows with a muffled thump, and finally, _finally _the room is silent.

Megamind is still frozen, but he's sitting up and his thin chest is heaving and his eyes are open—okay, they're like saucers and he's staring straight ahead, but still, he's _awake_. His right hand is outflung and Mars is dangling from his left, and the tendons in his neck stand out like whipchord.

A flutter of motion, and suddenly Mars is in his right hand and extended towards Roxanne, who's on her side, propped up on one elbow. Other than that, he hasn't moved. Slowly, Roxanne takes Mars, and Megamind's fingers snap open as soon as he feels a tug and he jerks his hand away as if he's afraid he will burn her.

A long, long minute passes. Neither of them moves.

"…Megamind?"

He shudders like a machine cranking to life, then squeezes his eyes shut and slouches, rubs a hand over the side of his face, forces himself to relax a little.

"Ow," he says hoarsely, and Roxanne immediately sits up.

"What? What hurts?"

"_Everything_," he rasps. Is that _his _voice? That is _not _his voice. He clears his throat. "No, I'm okay. Just…surprised. I think." There, that sounds better. "What _was _that?"

A hysterical little laugh bubbles out of her. "My alarm clock."

He slumps, rubs both hands over his face this time. "Okay, first thing," he mumbles, "I am building you a new alarm clock. One that doesn't sound like a panic siren."

"Oh, really? And who says you're allowed to build me anything?" She'd meant to sound teasing, but she's tired and her tone falls somewhat short of the mark. Megamind stiffens for a moment, then nods.

"You're right. Of course. I'm sorry. It isn't worth much but I _am _sorry."

"Yes, you said that." She gazes at him for a moment. "Aside from everything hurting, how's your structural integrity?"

He looks at her then, eyebrows up, surprise written all over his features. "That's kind of a clinical way to ask someone how he's feeling, isn't it?"

Her mouth quirks into an amused smile. "Maybe. I was just remembering Nibs' data search for your medical background. Cross-reference structural integrity with blunt force trauma, or something like that."

Megamind frowns, and realizes he's clutching the blankets in both white-knuckled fists. He releases them with a concentrated effort, smoothing them down with shaking hands that seem very blue against the stark white of Roxanne's sheet. "You…tried to access my medical files?"

"This was before I got your note telling me not to worry." Roxanne frowns right back. "Did you _really_, honestly think I _wouldn't _worry if you disappeared for a week and a half?"

He shrugs. The movement pulls at his chest, but it doesn't really hurt and he ignores it. "There didn't seem to be any reason for you to."

"News flash, genius," she says, and those words might have sounded sarcastic coming from someone else, but from her it sounds almost like she's trying to banter. "Friends worry about each other when they disappear. Especially after one of them has just been stepped on and punched by a guy with super-strength. You were worried about sending me a note?" She shakes her head. "I would have been angry if you _didn't _send one."

He frowns. "I thought it would seem pre-sump-toos of me."

Roxanne's lips twitch, but she says nothing about his pronunciation. "If _I_ disappeared suddenly, would _you _worry?"

Megamind recoils. "Of course."

She raises her eyebrows and gives her head a little shake, as if to say, _well then_.

"But you—" He cuts himself off before he can go any further. "Never mind."

Roxanne doesn't press him. For a moment, they sit in silence.

Then she's moving. She is moving _towards _him, and now she's lying back down and pulling on the sleeve of his shirt and he's lying down too before he can think about it, and _what is this? What? What is this?_

"Seriously, now, how are your ribs? Are they still broken?"

"No, they just hurt a little. They probably won't even do that, tomorrow." He's amazed at how very _calm _he sounds. Like his old self, like nothing ever happened, but he can't come up with a smart remark to save his life.

"Good," says Roxanne, and presses herself along his side. Her face is against his _neck_.

"Um."

"Is this okay?" she asks, and a little thrill runs through him when her breath ghosts over his neck and shoulder. Yes, this is okay. This is better than okay. He's just woken up and he's wildly confused but yes, this is better than okay.

"It's fine."

"Because I can move, if it bothers you. I didn't exactly ask—"

"No!" He tries to cut off the rest of what he wants to say, and fails. "No, you're _fine_. This is…unexpected, but no, it's not unwelcome. Quite the opposite, in fact." Why can't he stop talking? He's going to embarrass himself in a minute, and he clamps his mouth shut.

A few seconds tick by.

"Okay, you're new to this, can I try something?"

Hesitantly, Megamind nods, and Roxanne lifts his arm up and squirms under it. And lies back down, _right up against him_, with her head on his shoulder and his arm holding her against his side. "How about this, is this still okay?" she says again. "I don't know about your collarbone…"

"I don't have collarbones," is the first thing out of his mouth, and he nearly kicks himself. Where did _that _come from?

Roxanne pauses. "Are you serious?"

"…No. I'm not," Megamind admits, and now she's laughing.

Roxanne Ritchi is lying down with him, _cuddling _with him, and she is fully aware of who he is, and she is _laughing_. Never in a million years would he have ever thought this would happen. He's afraid to move, almost, for fear she'll decide to get up and do whatever her alarm clock was set for—work, probably—but after a minute or so he's beginning to cramp up and so he says, "Um. This is. But. Can I…?"

Her only answer is to lift herself up a bit, so he shifts around for a half-second and bends a little into a more comfortable position. "Okay," he says, hoping—_yes_, and she fits herself more securely against him and burrows back down into his shoulder.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

After a minute of thrilled silence, Roxanne says, "Minion sleeps like a rock, doesn't he?"

Megamind chuckles. "He does. I keep him on his toes so much that he tends to sleep extra deeply when he manages to catch a few hours. I keep telling him, he doesn't have to stay up with me, I can take care of myself, but he almost never listens." As he's speaking, one of his hands comes up to tentatively touch her hair. It happens completely by accident, and when he realizes what he's doing he nearly shies away, but Roxanne hums and drapes her arm over his middle.

At some point, Megamind's other arm, the one that was along Roxanne's back, has ended up wrapped around her waist. He isn't sure when that happened but she doesn't seem upset about it, and Megamind decides right then and there that whatever is going to happen to him today can just go find someone else to happen to, because he is _never moving again_. Because this, right here, this is _perfect_.

The minutes tick by. He doesn't have to count them. Roxanne's head is heavy on his shoulder, and he bends his head a little and closes his eyes but wills himself to stay awake. He has to memorize how this feels, how she feels curled against him, because he cannot allow himself to hope this will happen a second time. He doesn't dare.

He may have rescued her once, but he knows perfectly well she doesn't owe him anything. Especially not for that. They might as well chalk it up towards an apology for kidnapping her all those times. And he had to get rid of Titan _anyway_. And her saying she looked back does not necessarily mean all is forgiven, either—there is still the 'who says you're allowed to build me anything' to consider, in addition to the 'did you really think that I would ever be with you.' The answer to that is still no, he didn't, and no, he doesn't.

But she's making _not _hoping awfully difficult, wrapped around him like she is.

There's a tightness in his throat and chest that has nothing to do with his injuries, and he steels himself with an effort. He has to put an end to this, no matter how badly he wants to stay.

"Roxanne, what was your alarm clock set for?"

There's a long pause, and then Roxanne heaves a sigh and sits up. "I have to go to work."

"At five-thirty in the morning?"

She nods. "There's a professor at Metro University who figures he's worked out how to fix the problems with chemically-assisted nuclear reactions. Said he could meet with me at seven."

Megamind outright stares at her. As sorry as he is to no longer be holding her, he's almost equally relieved that here, at least, is something he knows about, something solid for him to hold onto in the midst of all the strangeness. "Chemically-assisted…_cold fusion?_" He sounds baffled. "What on Earth _for?_"

Roxanne stares back. "You've heard of this?"

"Of course I've 'heard of it,'" Megamind replies scathingly, sitting up now as well. "But actually trying to _do _anything with it is a one-way ticket to laughingstocksville, if not for the reasons most people usually think." His lip curls, and Roxanne gets the distinct impression that this is a bit of a sore spot for him. "Has this…_professor _sent you any kind of paper on the subject? A publication or a report?"

Another nod. "I read it through twice last night to get some ideas for the interview."

Megamind raises his eyebrows. "And...?"

Roxanne shrugs. "Clear as mud. Something about three miracles?"

Megamind is really scowling now. "I want to read it."

* * *

When Roxanne gets out of her shower, Megamind is nowhere to be seen. The grey pajamas are folded neatly at the foot of her bed, which has been made up. Shrugging, she puts on the clothes she'd laid out last night, carefully chosen to play up today's subject: a brown A-line skirt over a white button-up blouse, modestly sleeveless. Understated makeup, unobtrusive jewelry, closed-toed pumps. Not all reporters work along the same lines as Roxanne, but she generally tries to dress to match the stories she covers. Today, that means bookish.

Megamind isn't in the living room, either, and she wonders briefly if he just took the paper and left, but Minion is still fast asleep in the corner. Megamind wouldn't leave without Minion.

She finds him sitting on her kitchen counter next to a bowl of dry Froot Loops, with a badly-blackened piece of toast in one hand and the paper in the other, horrified amusement etched all over his blue face. He's wearing his usual gear, but his feet are bare.

He sends a cursory glance her way when she walks in, then turns back to the journal. "You look like a shoolteacher."

"Good," she replies, "that's what I was going for."

Megamind blinks up again, momentarily puzzled before comprehension spreads over his features. "What…ah. Presentation. I approve," and back he goes. The toast disappears behind the paper, and she hears crunching.

"Surely you aren't actually eating that," she says.

"Carbohydrates," he says, holding up the toast, and then he nods at the Froot Loops. "Sugar."

She takes the eggs out of her refrigerator and a pan out of the cupboard. "Protein," she tells him firmly. "If I make it, will you eat it?"

Megamind glances at her, green eyes bright with humor and something he'd rather not name, but she's turned towards the stove and doesn't see. Perhaps that's just as well. "If you make it," he says as he goes back to the journal, "I will eat it."

A few seconds later, he bursts out laughing. "Have you _read _this?"

Roxanne frowns, cracking eggs into the pan. "It sounded pretty dry to me."

"_Look_," says Megamind as he puts down the journal. "Ask him how he compensates for Draviadya's Corollary to Phaeton's Law. Just you ask him _that_. Because he's using Uberwald's Coefficient to support his hypothesis, and he make_s no mention_ of Draviadya _anywhere _in here!" Megamind is waving the toast around like a conductor with a baton. "He also says he hopes to build a reactor in the near future to start producing energy for the university—all well and good, _I_ say, but ask him this: How does he expect to contain the inevitable coronal mass ejection resulting from a kinetic energy overload of the circulating currents?"

Roxanne can only stare. Megamind's face is lit up with laughter, and she is certain he's speaking English, but she's also certain she has no idea what he just said. "I can't ask him that." She shakes her head. "I don't know what it means."

Megamind crosses one leg over the other and turns his body towards her so he doesn't have to crane his head around. "Here's the thing," he says, resting one elbow on his knee and the other on his ankle and leaning forward to gesture with both hands, "I very much doubt he got this news coverage through any valid scientific merit. This Anderson fellow is a comparatively young guy, only in his mid-thirties, with no doctorate and no major recognition in the scientific community as of yet." He takes another bite of the sad-looking toast and munches enthusiastically before continuing, shedding crumbs everywhere. "He's written no thesis and frankly I'm not even convinced he's really a professor. This thing isn't peer-reviewed—it's not even a journal; it's a draft of a paper he sent for publication—and he has no research partners. He probably got your coverage by throwing around terms like 'viable alternative source of fuel' and 'green energy' and 'low budget.' Probably called your station directly, am I right? Of course I'm right."

Roxanne raises and lowers one shoulder. Her boss had said, 'call this guy,' so she called the guy and set up a time for an interview. She had also looked into him on her own, of course, but she wasn't able to find much. This paper seems to be a debut, of sorts, if it gets published.

Megamind takes the shrug as an indication that he's correct. "Okay, listen to me. What he wants to do is _not _build a cold fusion reactor. He tips his hand on that fairly early in the report—I don't know why, it's certainly an admirable pursuit and once you hammer out the kinks you really can't do much better than cold fusion, provided you're able to actually _use_ all the energy it creates—but based on his discussion, he's using cold fusion as a basis for his extrapolation. What he _wants _is to recreate the conditions found on the surface of Earth's sun. The problem with that goal is, those specific conditions are supported by the conditions _inside _the sun."

The eggs are beginning to congeal in the pan. Roxanne has never bothered to learn the art of frying, and she scootches them absently around with a plastic spatula. She's ruined enough Teflon frying pans to know not to use metal. "So it won't work."

But Megamind shakes his head. "No, that's the problem, it _could _work. Assuming he has a source of magnetic energy strong enough to serve as a containment field, as he proposes—and I would _dearly _love to see him try to contain _this _with _magnets_—it could work beautifully for a period of about three years, at which point the circulating currents would overload and his reactor would fail with a magnificent _bang_." He blows out his cheeks and throws his hands in the air. The toast breaks in half and goes flying.

"Poof!" he cries. "No more Eastern Seaboard."

Roxanne glances sideways at him, trying not to laugh. God, she's missed him. More than she realized. "Do I detect the voice of experience behind that statement?"

Megamind's eyes go huge. "Absolutely not." He hops down from the counter to search for the other half of his toast. "I'm not foolish enough to go tinkering around with what's inside stars. I use a combination of cold and muon-catalyzed fusion to power the Lair."

"Muon…catalyzed?" Roxanne has heard cold fusion mentioned in b-movies, but she's never heard of a muon in her life.

Megamind grimaces, bright green eyes flicker-flicking over the hardwood floor. "Don't…don't mention that to the press? I'd rather not have a bunch of nuclear physicists banging on my door day and night demanding to know how I've managed to collect enough muons to make the process feasible. Excuse me." Roxanne skips to the side as Megamind drops to his hands and knees with hardly any warning. He finally locates the toast under the stove, and gives it up as a lost cause. No way is he going to eat that.

Roxanne shakes her head and scrapes the eggs onto two plates, then hands one of them to Megamind when he stands back up again. "You're the expert."

"That's right, I _am _the expert." He sounds and looks very gleefully self-satisfied, and Roxanne can't help but return the manic grin he sends her. "I just don't want anybody else thinking _they _are. Do you have any ketchup?"

She gives it to him and watches as he squirts an unholy amount onto his plate and mixes it around with the back of his fork. Roxanne does not eat ketchup with her eggs and has always been very slightly judgmental of those who do, but Megamind is just so enthusiastic about it that it doesn't even matter. It's grossly adorable, in a way.

_I am standing in my kitchen, eating breakfast with a blue formerly-criminal mastermind, and chatting about particle physics at six o'clock in the morning. I am in a universe where that is actually_ happening.

After a while, she clears her throat. "So, what was it you wanted me to ask him?"

Megamind waves the question aside and continues to inhale his breakfast. "It's okay, you won't remember it. Too many big words."

Roxanne raises her eyebrows. Part of being a good reporter is having an outstanding auditory memory, and Roxanne is no exception. "Are you calling me stupid?" Word for word can be a challenge, but she can usually manage it if she listens with intent.

Megamind chokes, then gulps reflexively, swallowing a mouthful of eggs before he's really chewed them. "Ow. No, no, absolutely not! I'm just saying that these are very precise questions and they have to be worded correctly…" He trails off. Roxanne is staring straight at him, eyes narrowed, challenging him.

He's well-acquainted with Roxanne's take-no-prisoners face. He nods. "How does he compensate for Draviadya's Corollary to Phaeton's Law, and how does he expect to contain the inevitable coronal mass ejection resulting from a kinetic energy overload of the circulating currents mentioned on page 17?" He watches her lips move as she attempts to memorize this. "You can tell him I'm the one who wants to know, if you aren't comfortable asking."

"We'll see," Roxanne replies lightly. "Okay, I'm going to brush my teeth and then I'm off. If you need anything, help yourself. Will you be here when I come back?"

Megamind shakes his head. "Possibly, but I doubt it. I need to get back to the Lair and see how things are progressing with the cleanup and rebuild." A thought occurs suddenly; she can see it hit him. "And when someone asks—and someone will—tell them I'm only allowing the brainbots to repair damage _I_ caused, directly and indirectly. Because those damages occurred due to a sudden and unexpected outside force, the brainbots' assistance should not affect normal production levels and not have any lasting negative effects on the economy." He hesitates. "Or positive effects, either, but…don't tell them that part until I have a chance to talk to Mayor Gray and potentially also the Metro Chamber of Commerce."

She'd _known _he would think of that. "Got it." She heads towards the hallway, but his voice calls her back.

"Roxanne?"

She turns, then blinks. Something in Megamind's face has changed slightly. For a moment, he looks almost awkward. Almost shy, if Megamind _could _be shy. Roxanne has to take a moment to place it before she realizes it's an expression she's accustomed to seeing on Bernard's face.

The eyes are the same, though.

He ducks his head. "Thank you for letting me stay."

She smiles. "If you do end up leaving today, Minion has a key. You're welcome to come back anytime if you need a break."

_Then _she leaves, quickly, wondering what on Earth had possessed her to issue a standing invitation to Megamind. Not that it matters. She isn't about to retract it.

Her words catch him by surprise, too—he sits frozen on her counter for a few seconds, staring after her. So she _does _want him in her life, to some degree. He knows her well enough by now to know sincerity when he hears it.

He can feel the goofy grin spreading over his face, but makes no attempt to stop it. He finishes his breakfast, scrubs his plate to within an inch of its life, and then goes to wake up Minion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megamind waking up was the first scene I ever wrote for Cold Fusion! I wrote it, and then I was like _...crap. how did he get here? guess I gotta write that, too._ Eight years and four hundred thousand words later, here we are. *cracks knuckles* ONWARD!


	7. Chapter 7

The interview airs three days later, in the morning. Megamind suspects people are getting tired of the same old stories about rebuilding and what to tell various insurance companies—very little else would explain such a speedy release. He watches it, interested in spite of himself. He tells himself he _shouldn't _be interested, since this Anderson fellow is probably a hack, but this is something he knows about.

And Roxanne is the one reporting. So of course he's going to watch.

The interview goes…not badly, but it could have gone better. Megamind knows Roxanne cannot stand pretension, and the young professor is _more _than pretentious. Roxanne keeps her cool beautifully, but Megamind knows her; he can see her struggling to resist the urge to antagonize.

"…Not sure why my compatriots in the physical scientific community haven't looked further into cold fusion before," Anderson is saying, and _oh_, he sounds smug. It wouldn't be hard to at least pretend to be earnestly amused, but no, he sounds smug. What's worse, he seems to know it and not care. "Obviously, it isn't the impossibility they all think it is. Well, Miss Ritchi, do you have any questions?"

She probably wasn't going to ask, but the unspoken and obvious _of-course-you-don't_ in his tone is more than a little bit provoking. She glances down at her notes, folds one leg over the other. "I do, yes. I noticed you've used Uberwald's Coefficient in several of your equations, but I couldn't find how you've compensated for Draviadya's Corollary to Phaeton's Law." She leans back a little bit, frowning. "_Obviously_, I'm not an expert in this field so it's possible I missed your explanation, but I couldn't find a single mention of Draviadya in your report."

Anderson blinks. "I…um. The terms of my hypothesis rendered Draviadya's Corollary invalid. I didn't need to consider it."

"Wrong," Megamind says aloud. He is grinning from ear to ear.

Roxanne raises her eyebrows. "Are you sure?" she asks. Her tone is still politely inquisitive; only someone who knew her well would be able to detect the steel under it. "Phaeton's Law is one of the three universal laws. Wouldn't any corollaries to a universal law be universal by extension?"

"It would appear so at first glance, but once you get into higher-level physics the universality breaks down a bit."

His recovery is smooth, Megamind will give him that, but he can tell Anderson is unsettled. He's trying to snow Roxanne, trying to tell her she's too stupid or uninformed to understand, and Megamind knows from years of experience how well _that _works.

Roxanne glances down at her notes again. "One more question, professor, and then I'm afraid we'll have to wrap this up."

"Of course."

"On page seventeen, you mention regulation of circulating currents. How do you plan to contain the inevitable coronal mass ejection resulting from a kinetic energy overload of those currents?"

Anderson laughs at that. "That's not the sort of thing I'd expect a reporter to ask."

"No, it isn't," she agrees, and waits.

Finally he sighs. "The dampening fields I outline on page nineteen should take care of any overloads."

"Oh _come on_," Megamind scoffs. "Your dampeners were modeled after the conditions _on the sun_."

Onscreen, to his surprise, Roxanne has just said something similar. _She's quick_, he thinks, and does a pleased little wiggle in his chair_._

"That's true enough," Anderson agrees.

"The sun emits solar flares regardless of any naturally-occurring dampening fields," Roxanne points out, and then, when Anderson freezes for a second, adds, "I think I must have missed something else. I mean," and offers up a bright little chuckle that sounds _nothing _like her, "I'm just a reporter, after all. And that's _obvious_." Her smile is all teeth, and Megamind actually laughs aloud. It's nice not to be on the receiving end of that smile—actually, watching her put someone else in his place for once is pretty funny.

Anderson's answering smile is brittle. "Yes, well, there were several contingency plans mentioned. They're very specific, though. I'm not surprised you missed them."

It's a good thing the show isn't live, or Megamind would be on the phone and calling in. If there's one thing he absolutely cannot stand, it's a smug, smirking, holier-than-thou _liar_.

Roxanne raises her eyebrows again and closes the interview for the sake of the camera, but Megamind is reaching for his phone and doesn't notice.

_I'm going to invert his kneecaps_, he texts, and hits send.

Fifteen seconds later, _who?_

_Anderson. For his students' sakes._

_he was an ass, yes_

Megamind grins, and types out, _What are you doing later?_

But then he hesitates, his smile fading, and his thumb wavers over the send button before he deletes the message. Because really, he has no business asking that. It's none of his business what she does. And she only just got rid of him a few days ago after putting up with him in close proximity for more than a week; there's no way she'll have any interest in seeing him anytime soon.

He lays his phone aside and kicks over to his drawing board and the plan he's drafting there. It's just for fun, nothing he plans on actually building—some of his ideas are like that; he just needs to get them out of his head. This one is a long-range electrical conduit capable of transferring and storing energy produced by a cold fusion reactor. Roxanne got him started thinking about the subject, and one thing led to another, and, well…here he is.

Minion had an idea for a new water filter for the harbor, though; Megamind will work on that later.

A minute later, his phone beeps. Hopeful, he kicks back over to it. Sure enough, it's Roxanne.

_what are your plans for today?_

He stares at this for a full half a minute, trying to work out what that means. It might mean the same as what he would have meant, but he isn't even sure _what _he meant, or whether his current train of thought is even making any sense. Finally he just shakes his head and responds. _Not much. Brainstorming. Why?_

A pause. Beep. _you have time for lunch?_

It's not a mention of a date, specifically, but Megamind can't keep the smile off his face. Yes, absolutely, he has time for lunch. And dinner. And everything in between. But what he says is, _Where and when? :)_

_the park. usual spot. Noon?_

Texting is nice. There's no way for Roxanne to see or hear just how giddy this makes him. _Sounds good._

There is no response, after that, and after waiting for a little while, he goes off in search of Minion. He needs a distraction. There's no way he'll be able to do any work with this on his mind.

What is he supposed to wear? He can't go around in his usual leathers. For one thing, he's still trying to stay more or less out of the public eye while he figures out the exact terms of his pardon and ponders his new, as-yet-officially-unlabeled role, and for another, it's July. Spending any amount of time outdoors on a sunny July day in full supervillain regalia is a miserable idea even for people who can sweat, and Megamind can't. Boots and gloves and black leather and spandex? No, thank you.

Street clothes, then? Shorts and t-shirts seem to be the norm for human males, but Megamind will be dead twice before he wears _shorts_.

…Jeans? Would jeans be okay? After a few seconds' consideration, he has to admit that this would probably be the safest option for him.

_Do I even own jeans?_ he wonders as he wanders toward the kitchen. It isn't like he's needed them before. He mostly stays inside as much as possible in summer, and he's never made it a practice to worry about social norms or other people's preferences before unless it's in terms of violation.

That's when he realizes he's dithering, and is appalled. He _never _dithers. He makes decisions and stands by them until the bitter end. Sometimes he makes the wrong ones, but so far that's only helped secure his reputation as a half-mad super-genius.

His reputation, which matters peanuts right now. "Min—" he begins, then stops when he sees the note tacked to the refrigerator. Minion is out running errands, picking up spare parts and scrap metal from nearby junkyards.

The only other person he could possibly call for advice is Wayne, and he isn't yet so desperate that he'll call Metro Man for dating advice. Or any other advice, for that matter.

He groans. This was all so much easier when he was pretending to be Bernard.

He looks up. _Bernard_.

He'll still need to wear something other than his leathers if he doesn't want to collapse of heat exhaustion, but Bernard is a definite possibility. Megamind doesn't know whether Roxanne wants him to go as himself or as Bernard, but he knows he'll at least be safe that way. Besides, it will look bad if Roxanne is seen in public with the villain who—as far as anyone knows—murdered her 'boyfriend.'

He glances at his watch. 10:15. He has a little time to run out and get normal-people clothing before he has to meet Roxanne.

* * *

He's a good fifteen minutes early to the bench where 'Bernard' and Roxanne always met, safe behind his mask and comfortable—well, as comfortable-_ish_ as he can manage—in new jeans and a plain short-sleeved shirt, both of which fit fairly tightly because all the looser clothes he tried felt downright bizarre. They bunched. He isn't used to clothing that bunches, so he just went with what felt closest to his leathers.

The jeans are a couple inches too short; he had needed to go to the children's section to find anything that fit his waist. And he isn't sure how he feels about the shoes, the _flippe-floppes_, but the saleswoman had insisted they would be more comfortable for summer heat than boots would be. They certainly are cooler, but he can feel the wind on his feet and ankles and the sensation is extremely strange.

And his neck is exposed, which he _does not like_. Megamind is touchy about his neck. Thank god Bernard wore a turtleneck and people can't actually _see_ him—no, they just see a man wearing a turtleneck sweater and suit jacket in July, which isn't odd _at all_—but the illusion doesn't project tactile sensations on the wearer, and the t-shirt is scoop-necked. His collarbones are bare. That is _not okay_.

He feels naked. How, he wonders, can those girls over there wander around in shirts with sleeves made of string and—_all right, that shirt doesn't even _have _sleeves, what the hell_. Vastly different comfort levels and life experiences, probably. It's the answer to a lot of questions about why Megamind differs from most of humanity despite growing up among them.

So, his clothing situation could be worse.

"You look unhappy."

He jumps and looks around frantically, then up at Roxanne, whose shirt—hooray—has sleeves. And her shorts—_no, those aren't shorts, what are those? I know there's a word for what those are_—cover her knees. She looks very normal, except for the dark smudges under her eyes. Megamind relaxes slightly. "I am very happy," he says, and it's true. "I'm just not comfortable."

At her questioning glance, he explains, "It's too hot outside for leather."

Roxanne blinks. "Do you _have _other clothes?"

"I do _now_," he mutters, plucking at his shirt and completely missing her sigh of relief. "I don't know if I like them, though. My neck…" He trails off with a delicate shudder and looks back up at her. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

Roxanne chuckles. "All right, then." She nudges his leg with her knee, and he scoots over to make room on the bench. "I have to admit, I wasn't expecting to see Bernard again."

Megamind winces. "I, ah. I wasn't sure if you should be seen in public with me." He hesitates for a moment. Might as well go all the way, he thinks, and finishes, "Or if you would _want _to be seen in public with me. I thought this would be safest, for now."

Roxanne nods. "I see. Thank you."

And there isn't much Megamind can do but jump to the worst possible conclusion, since this is already really too good to be true. The fact that she still wants to associate with him at all is beyond unbelievable. So he'll have to wear Bernard from now on, so what? He'll take what he can—

"Hey," Roxanne says suddenly, and he glances over to find her watching him. "I meant, thanks for thinking about what people would say if they saw us together. That was considerate of you." He blinks at her, hesitant, and she gives him a little smile. "Megamind, you already know what I think about judging by appearances."

"That's on principle, though," he says before he can stop himself, and shrugs. "It's all right, really."

"It is _not _on principle." She actually sounds offended. "You know me better than that. Books and covers, remember?"

He doesn't say anything to that. He isn't sure what he's _supposed _to say.

Suddenly she's laughing. "You wear your heart on your sleeve, did you know that?" Shaking her head, she continues, "Look, genius. Either you can take what I say at face value and remember I have no reason to lie to you, or you can insist until the bitter end that there's no way I would ever want to be with you and eventually I'll take the hint and leave. It's your choice, Megamind, it really is. But I _will not _be with someone who's afraid to say what they're thinking."

Well, that isn't so much to ask. "In that case—keeping in mind what you said about the content of the book—what exactly do you want? From me?"

She sighs. "I want Bernard back." He recoils, feeling like he's just been slapped, but she presses onward, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "Or, sort of. I _miss _you. I miss just…texting you and, and meeting you in the park and eating lunch and talking. I don't know where we were going, but…I was enjoying it." She sounds wistful. "I liked being with you."

"As Bernard," he says quietly, a stone in his throat.

She glances at him. "I liked it when we talked sometimes before you turned the cameras on. And I liked talking with you in my kitchen, when you woke up."

Then, after a long moment, she says, "I liked waking up next to you."

Startled, Megamind looks at her. Roxanne is staring out across the park, biting her lip, her expression pensive and—maybe embarrassed? Is she blushing?

She takes a deep breath, looks over at him, and says, "I'd like to do that again, Megamind. Wake up next to you and talk physics over breakfast. Or engineering, or journalism. Anything, really, I'm not picky."

Megamind is aware his mouth is open, but he doesn't seem to be able to do anything about it. He feels like he's been squeezed through a very small wormhole and come out on the other side in a dimension he doesn't recognize. He feels, also, like he might be dying. She wants what? She wants—she can't possibly.

But she doesn't look like she's joking, and she doesn't look like she's lying, and…

…Really? That's a thing she can want? To sleep next to him, to talk to him?

"Breathe," Roxanne says, and oh. Yes. That might help with the not dying.

She turns toward him and lifts a hand, and he startles on reflex, shivers away a little. She pauses, but continues to move her hand up toward—past—his face—pulls a leaf out of his hair. Bernard's hair.

The leaf flutters away, but she's still looking up at his head. "It really does feel mostly like hair," she says. "I thought it must be a hologram, but if I didn't know better…"

"Hard light," he hears himself say, even though his whole body still feels stunned numb and out of place with itself.

Roxanne is wearing a confused little smile, her blue eyes bright and fascinated as she touches Bernard's hair again. "But…your head?"

"Hard light and a pocket dimension," he amends, and she pulls away and lowers her hand, looking him up and down.

"And it's dynamic?"

"Calibrated to fit my spatiokinetic signature."

Her eyebrows go up. She's still smiling. "That's incredible," she tells him, sounding completely honest, her eyes sparkling. "And it comes from where?" Speechless, he holds up his wrist and taps the face of his watch, and Roxanne's jaw drops. "You fit all that in a _watch?_"

Nope. This is it. Megamind is going to die. He had a good run but he's hit his expiration date; he does _not _know how to handle her looking at him and knowing it's him and smiling like that.

"Amazing," she says, and gives him a friendly bump with her shoulder. If Megamind had known it would be this nice to tell her all his secrets, he might have started sooner. "Simply amazing."

Then she sighs, and her smile slips a couple notches. "Anyway…Megamind, as far as the content of the book goes? Well, you didn't really kill Metro Man. You did take over the city, but you're fixing your mess. And…I think I already sort of cared about you. A little."

He swallows hard, his heart fluttering. _She—?_

"But," he says, desperately wishing he didn't need to point this out, "I lied to you."

"Did you enjoy it?"

She sounds like she expects the answer to be no, but Megamind looks away. He won't lie to her again. Not about this. "Pieces of it," he admits softly.

Sure enough, Roxanne blinks and withdraws slightly. "Wait, really?"

"I…liked seeing you be happy to see me." He breathes for a moment, shrugs a little. "Nobody ever smiles when I walk in."

When she doesn't reply, he looks up to find her staring at him and wearing an expression he isn't sure how to read. She opens her mouth, then closes it, blinks a couple times. And then she reaches over and takes his hand, threads her fingers through his and looks at their joined hands. She squeezes, then stands and pulls him to his feet.

"Come on," she says. "Food."

None of which really answers any of his uncertainties, but she's holding his hand and she isn't shouting at him, so Megamind follows her to their usual food truck and orders his usual egg roll and lo mein. And they talk about nothing and the world in general for the next little while, until there's a lull in the conversation and Roxanne stretches out on the grass. After a moment's hesitation, Megamind copies her.

The grass is green yet, and soft under the shade of the tree where the summer sun can't beat down on it. August feels a long way off, and for a while, everything is as it used to be.

_I'm going to miss this_, he thinks.

"Roxie!"

Beside him, Roxanne lifts herself onto her elbows. "Jo! Hey! What brings you out here?"

Her friend waves a brown arm as she walks towards them. "Enjoying the weather. Also I wanted to take my new dress for a test drive on my day off! So?" She twirls.

"Very flattering," Roxanne tells her. "That's a good color for you."

"Mind if I join you for a bit?" Jo asks, and sits without waiting for a reply. Megamind eyes her cautiously as he sits up—he recognizes the way she moves, the way she carries herself. Bright yellow sun-dress and small stature aside, this woman is a fighter.

"I don't mind," Roxanne says, then looks at Megamind.

_I have a say in this?_ "Sure," he says, shrugging, ignoring the nervous twist in his stomach. "Of course, why not."

When Jo smiles, it nearly bisects her face. Megamind can see her molars. "I'm Jo, one of Roxie's friends from work," she says, sticking out her hand to shake. He grips it, realizes she's sizing him up the same way he is her, and his lips twitch in spite of himself.

"Jo, this is Bernard," Roxanne tells her friend, and Megamind shoots her a quick, questioning glance. Roxanne is grinning, and Jo's broad smile grows, if it's possible, even broader.

"Hello, 'Bernard,'" Jo says, and Megamind can hear the invisible quotation marks. She knows. He isn't sure how, but she knows. Jo looks at Roxanne and rubs her ear as if it itches. "So how did you two meet?"

Roxanne blinks. Jo raises her eyebrows, smiling pleasantly. "I'll let Bernard explain that," Roxanne says, and stands up and brushes herself off. "I'm going to go get drinks, okay? Coke for Bernard, iced tea for you, Jo?"

"Sounds awesome, thanks."

"Um," says Megamind, but Roxanne is already gone, and Megamind is alone with the stranger. If this comes to blows…_no_. If Roxanne trusts her, he'll do his best to try.

Still, he frowns at her, lifts a hand to his ear. "What was that? Some kind of signal?"

"You're quick," Jo replies. "I guess it wasn't subtle. Yeah, I want to talk to you. You like Roxanne, yes?"

"Oh _come on_," he exclaims. "What kind of a question is that?"

Jo sniffs, purses her lips. "A leading question. You know she's protective of you?"

He blinks, thrown. "She—what?"

Jo nods, studying his face through narrowed eyes. "She tried to hide you from me. I thought…never mind what I thought." The flicker of darkness that passes over her face catches Megamind's attention, and his brain kicks into a higher gear. "Anyway, I came looking. To see if she was okay."

_Minion failed to mention that_. "Did you." He's studying her features as closely as she is his, now. Megamind has years of observation under his belt; he knows how to tell when someone is hiding something out of fear or duplicity versus out of consideration, and after a moment, he relaxes a little. Jo is here to ensure he doesn't hurt Roxanne.

Jo nods again. "You know she was willing to shoot me with that gun you carry?" Megamind cocks his head. More things to ask Minion about. "She tried to throw me, first," Jo adds, and grins. "It didn't work."

"I can't say I'm surprised."

She laughs. "But she put her butt on the line for you," she says. "I was seriously impressed! And worried. And she probably wouldn't think it was worth mentioning, but—I think you should know she would fight for you. She isn't like that for everybody." She pauses, staring after Roxanne. "Been a while since someone made her happy," she tells him quietly. "I don't want to see her heart get broken again. She's been through some shit." She turns back and frowns at Megamind. "If you put her through more shit, I will put _you _through some shit."

Ah. Threats. Megamind is back in familiar territory. "I don't want to…put her through shit." His mouth twists. "That said, I do invariably break the things I touch."

That makes Jo pull back and look him up and down again, then tip her head sideways to peer at his face.

"_Ok_ay," she says, eventually, in an odd tone of voice. "Okay. If _that's_ how it is with you. Leave her if you have to, but…hey, don't just walk away, you know? Yes? Mr. I-can't-have-nice-things?" Megamind scowls, but Jo only rolls her eyes and tucks her feet to the side. "I am here to tell you, hey, I think she wants you. Don't fuck it up because you think you're just going to break it anyway."

This is ridiculous. He has just met this woman, and now she's evaluating him and telling him what to do? Pushy. Rude. She is treating him like a child.

But she is Roxanne's friend, and so far, she hasn't screamed in his face or tried to extort favors from him or touched him in weird places or done any of the other things humans generally do when they seek him out, so Megamind is determined to be polite if it kills him. He takes a deep, steadying breath. "I don't like not knowing things. I don't like it when the facts don't make sense. If I can't make sense of something, I tend to disbelieve it."

Jo waits, watching him.

Megamind waits, too, but he breaks the silence first when Jo just continues to look politely interested. "_Why?_" he asks. "You're her friend. You know her. If you can give me any more data, any _insight _into the rationale behind your assertions," he spreads his hands wide, vaguely aware that he's slipping into voice patterns he thought he'd left behind years ago, "please! Be my guest! Because I _do not _understand the facts as they stand."

Jo waits. A spider blows down from a low-hanging branch of the tree, gossamer silk trailing behind, and she reaches up and catches it. Megamind is growing increasingly agitated.

"I _lied _to her. I've kidnapped her for years. I'm—I was a career supervillain! I'm not even _human!_ I may have…very little experience romantically, or," he pauses, searching for a better way to say it and finding none, "or with friends in general, but my observations—"

"Are probably not useful in this case," Jo finishes, and Megamind splutters into glowering silence. She turns her hand over, lets the little brown arthropod wander over the backs of her fingers. "Relationships are all different. Your facts as they stand—I don't know all of them. I don't know your observations, either." She glances at him, shakes her head. "But Roxie _likes _you. She says you make her happy. You think she's lying? Or, you think she doesn't know her mind? Please." She rolls her eyes.

"No, I know she—I don't think she's lying," he allows, "and I think she knows herself. But…it doesn't make any _sense_."

"So, you don't understand. This makes it impossible?"

Megamind looks away. It's not that he doesn't understand, it's that he can't think of any reasons for Roxanne to like him. He knows there's a possibility Jo is right, he just can't figure out _why_, and it's driving him insane.

Beside him, Jo is holding her spider up to her face, talking to it. "Hi youuu," she croons. "Hi. What's your name?"

"_Mangora placida_," he murmurs absently.

Jo glances up. "What?"

He looks at her, then nods at the spider. "It's a _Mangora placida_. A tuft-legged orb weaver."

Jo blinks, bemused amusement spreading over her features. "Why do you know that?"

Megamind colors. "I had a…run-in with a spider a couple months ago. Started doing research."

"Oh yes, the _Arachnus deathicus_ incident." Roxanne is back with their drinks, and grinning from ear to ear as she sits down. "Good times."

Megamind groans. "I will never live that down, will I?" Without waiting for a reply, he points at Jo. "Did you ask her to come?"

"I may have mentioned I would be coming here, and I may have mentioned I would be bringing someone." Behind her back, Jo catches Megamind's eye and nods, grinning. She resumes her deadpan when Roxanne looks from Megamind to her and back again. "Did you two have a nice talk?"

Jo and Megamind glance at each other again. Jo lifts her eyebrows.

"You have a good friend," Megamind says. It's a simple enough observation, but it seems to suffice as a response; Roxanne agrees with him, and Jo laughs, and the two of them engage in conversation, and Megamind relaxes somewhat.

But the facts remain. Jo's input has been…something to think about, true, but the facts remain.

Fact: If Roxanne is seen in public, in a relationship, with the man who 'killed' her supposed boyfriend, the media will have a field day. This will make Roxanne's life exceptionally difficult.

Fact: Lying is bad, if you're trying to be good. He lied to her. That was bad.

Fact: Personal issues aside, there is just _no reason _for her to like him. Not after everything he put her through, not enough to risk dating him, not enough to risk the inevitable societal backlash. If Megamind could think of a valid reason, maybe he would reevaluate his stance, but he can't come up with a single one. There just _aren't_ any.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anderson is a fart from a butt, and Jo thinks spiders are cute :3


	8. Chapter 8

It's nearly two o'clock when Jo leaves. Roxanne hasn't objected to her presence, and she doesn't think Megamind has, but it's nice to be able to just sit quietly with each other for a while again. It's cool, under the tree, and the grass is soft and the air is warm and it really is a beautiful day.

And Megamind is thinking. He's thinking hard, Roxanne can tell. She can almost hear his brain humming.

"Penny for your thoughts." Nearby, a pair of children run by screaming, followed by a woman with a stroller calling for them to slow down and be careful all in the same breath.

Megamind doesn't reply right away. When he does, his voice is quiet. "I don't understand you."

Roxanne looks at him. He's lying on his back in the grass with his eyes open, his pupils pinned down to little dots against the sunlight, hands folded neatly behind his head, one ankle crossed over the other. Just for a second she tries to imagine his real features over the illusion—blue against green, staring unblinkingly up at the sky.

"In what way?" It's the polite reply, but she's pretty sure she already knows.

Megamind glances at her, stretches a little without actually changing position. The way he's lying—laid out flat with his hands behind his head—suddenly strikes her. He's vulnerable right now, disguised or not, and despite his mental disquiet he's willing to leave himself open to attack in front of her.

"I've been thinking," he says.

Roxanne smiles. "You think too much," she tells him. "Such men are dangerous."

Megamind responds automatically, his mouth quirking into its old familiar smirk as he moves an arm to twirl and sweep a hand before him in a surprisingly elegant gesture. "_Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous; he is a noble Roman and well-given_." He tucks the hand back under his head and looks at her. "I think I resent being compared to the man who betrayed and killed Julius Caesar."

Roxanne's smile turns into more of a grin. "If I ever have to see that play again, I'll just kill him in Act One and save everybody the trouble."

A line appears between Megamind's eyebrows, but he's amused. Roxanne can tell. She's getting very good at reading him. "Do you know, I really think you would."

"Definitely not my favorite of the Bard's works." Roxanne heaves a sigh and lies back in the grass beside him. She can't match Megamind's wide-eyed stare at the summer sky; she has to close her eyes. "So, you've been thinking."

"Something of a habit for me, yes," he says lightly. "Let's…get things out in the open, shall we? Cards on the table, as it were."

Roxanne nods, relieved and a little surprised. She's as tired as he is of wondering where they really stand with each other, but she wasn't expecting Megamind to be the one to broach the subject out loud.

"You have a question." His voice is flat, now, a sure sign that he's serious. And judging from what she can see of the expression on his face, he doesn't like where he's taking this. "I've worked out what it is, I think. I'd like you to ask it."

Once upon a time, Roxanne would have snapped at him for presuming to know what she was thinking. It is obnoxious, and condescending, and too much like the old Megamind, the one who held himself away.

The old Megamind, who never hurt her, who occasionally went out of his way to keep her safe.

She takes a deep breath. "Were you planning on ever telling me who you really were?"

Megamind closes his eyes, and Roxanne braces herself. Whatever he says, Roxanne will trust. But if he says 'no,' she'll have a tough time moving past it.

"I don't know."

She frowns. She hasn't considered that one.

Megamind shakes his head slowly. "It was…still too soon to be sure. Yes? I don't _know_. At the time, no, I certainly wasn't." It's as honest an answer as he can give, but he keeps talking. He has to make her understand, and he's hoping it's not just optimism to think that if anyone ever _can _understand this, it's her. "I was too wrapped up in what was happening. No, I was not actively planning on telling you, but…would I have, eventually?" He pauses, opens his eyes. They flick back and forth for a moment, scanning something Roxanne can't see before he finally shakes his head again. "I can't say for sure," he admits heavily. "There are too many variables. As time progressed, I would have grown more comfortable with you, but more fearful as I prolonged the deception. And your anger and fear would be directly proportional to the length of time I had spent lying to you. It's even possible the growth line would be exponential."

He lets out an involuntary groan of frustration and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. "There aren't any _equations_ for this," he grits out. "It's all so subjective. I want to tell you, yes, eventually, I would have come to you with the truth." He swallows hard. "I want to tell you that. Badly."

Roxanne sits up and watches him. For a while, he doesn't move. He doesn't even breathe, that she sees. Finally she prompts, very quietly, "…But?"

"But." He does not remove his hands. "But, realistically," and he sucks his lip between his teeth and bites down hard enough to leave a mark when he speaks again, "I think I would be too afraid. I could never have…done anything _to_ you, I think." His phrasing is hesitant, but Roxanne knows what he means. "I would…I would have done something drastic before that happened. Distanced myself from you somehow." He finally lowers his hands, twists them into the soft grass at his sides. "Possibly I would have faked my own death, as Metro Man did, although that may be a bit _too _drastic."

Roxanne cannot resist a good-natured jab. "Even for you?"

Megamind smiles crookedly. "Even for me, but it would depend on how scared I ended up being. And I was scared."

Roxanne remembers the shocked bewilderment on his face when she shoved him away, and the _oh-god-here-it-comes_ face when she threw her drink at him. She reaches out and drags one of his hands up and holds onto it. Megamind tries half-heartedly to pull back, but Roxanne isn't having any of that, and he gives up without much of a fight.

"I'm so sorry," he says, after a while, sounding more than a little bit strangled, and Roxanne nods.

She sits and doesn't say anything for a long time, turning this over in her mind. Part of her is still deeply impressed that he asserted himself and pushed for this conversation, and part of her is nervous because 'I don't know' isn't nearly as reassuring as 'yes, I would have told you in time' would have been.

But the nervous part of her is small and mostly composed of residual fear from that night in the restaurant. Everything, _everything_ Megamind has said and done between that night and this afternoon—including tell her he isn't sure, he thinks he would be too afraid—has pointed to him being reliable and trustworthy and able to force himself to do what he knows is right when it counts, even if it hurts. Even if it could kill him. And this is killing him.

What Roxanne wants to say is something like, _thank you_, or, _I do trust you_, or, _it's okay_, but none of those answers will solve anything or answer any of the questions she's sure he has.

So what she says is, "Your turn," and pushes a finger against the fluttering pulse at his wrist. It is fast, much faster than it should be.

Megamind opens his eyes and stares at her. His pupils are surprisingly dilated compared to how tiny they were just a couple of minutes ago; his pulse is flying. He's all but panicking, Roxanne realizes with a sort of shock.

"You—what?"

"I asked you a question. It's your turn, now. And _calm down_," she adds, letting some worry creep into her tone. "Megamind, you're okay."

She watches the emotions flash over his features. Megamind is more expressive than he realizes, probably more expressive than he should be. Roxanne learned ages ago that keeping your feelings on display only makes it easier for people to hurt you with them. She certainly has hurt him over the years, intentionally and unintentionally.

Honestly, the fact that he was hopeful enough to follow her at all after the restaurant is mind-boggling. The fact that he's here, now, talking to her and trying to work things out is more so. But he wants, desperately, to know where he stands with her. That's why he's lying so still, that's why he hasn't broken and run yet.

His voice, when he speaks, is strained. "Why am I here?"

Roxanne has to smile. "I'm not a philosopher."

He doesn't pick up that she's teasing him. "No, I mean—why are we still hanging out socially? Why—why are you holding my hand, what is this?" He's speaking increasingly quickly. "You kept me safe, you let Minion stay with you, you gave us a _key to your home_, which, let's face it, probably isn't the smartest thing to give to a megalomaniacal ex-supervillain and his sidekick." He turns his head to the side to look at her again, eyes scanning wildly over her face, her body, taking in her relaxed posture. "I don't _get_ it," he cries, still holding himself flat on his back on the grass. "_Why aren't you angry?_ Are you hiding it? You said you looked back but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. And _don't laugh at me!_"

"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Roxanne can't help it. She is tired, very tired, and something about the phrase 'megalomaniacal ex-supervillain' strikes her as being horrendously funny even though it really isn't. And she shouldn't be laughing at all, not when Megamind is so confused, but his face's range of mobility is amusing even when he's calm—when he's freaking out his facial expressions border on truly ridiculous. "It's just. _You_. I'm sorry, god, I'm so sorry."

Megamind finally starts to sit up, but Roxanne turns and presses him back down with her free hand high on his chest. His heart goes nuts under her palm. "Stop."

He glares at her, and there's that hurt again. She cannot keep doing this.

"You move your face a lot when you talk, and I'm very tired right now." Roxanne forces herself to be serious, regulate her breathing. Her own worry has more or less dissipated, leaving her trembling and relieved, but she still needs to take care of her companion's fears. "I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. I don't mean to laugh at you."

The muscles around Megamind's mouth are tight, but he jerks his chin down in a nod anyway.

"Now," Roxanne says, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "To answer your question…I _was _angry. And I—and part of why I was so angry was because I trusted you. I trusted you—_you_, Megamind, not Bernard—I trusted _you _not to hurt me.

"So I could still be angry with you," she adds. Megamind's eyes have gone wide with shock. "And maybe I should be. But…I thought about this whole situation a lot, that night after I walked home in the rain. And I don't think you were lying about anything except your face and your name." Then, when he hesitates, she clarifies, "You showed me the same you that you show to Minion?"

He turns that over for a second, then nods slowly. "Y…es. Yes, I think so."

"Okay," she sighs, and tucks her hair behind her ear. "Okay! And you became Bernard when we were at the museum, right? Before you had the walls and ceiling removed?" When he nods again, she continues, "Which means the next time I saw you was at Evil Lair, where I basically cornered you into the whole charade without even realizing it." She laughs a little. "Really, what were you supposed to say when I insisted on you helping me figure out Megamind's plans? 'No, Roxanne, I can't because _I'm_ secretly Megamind in disguise'?" She raises her eyebrows at him. "I mean, seriously."

"But I could have—I could have _told _you, or—"

Roxanne presses a finger to his lips for a second, and Megamind freezes, all his trains of thought totally derailed. "Yes," she agrees quietly, "yes, you could have found a way. But what would you have said to me? Tell me, right now. What would you have said?"

He opens his mouth, then stops, struggling. After a moment, she smiles a little and shakes her head.

"You didn't know how. Should you have figured it out anyway? Yes. Absolutely. But you panicked. You panicked, and you didn't know how to fix it, and…I get that, I think.

"Anyway, that's only part of the reason," she adds, while he's still blinking at that. "The other part is—it worked out _so well!_ Yes, I was hurt and angry, but I think I do understand why you did it. Am I right? You panicked?"

"_No!_" he exclaims. "No, I—well, okay, yes, at first I was just—reacting." He scowls, his mouth twisting angrily. "But after…I…Roxanne, I _liked _it! I did! I, I didn't like the lying but I _wanted_ to see you, I wanted to talk to you, I…I wasn't panicking, then." He gulps, wanting the ground to open beneath him and just swallow him. "I wanted to see you and I didn't want you to see me, so I _lied_, I—lied. Intentionally. Repeatedly."

"Yes, I know that," Roxanne tells him, and his heart sinks. But she doesn't let go of his hand. "I know, and I think…Megamind, I think it was worth it," she says firmly. Megamind's gaze snaps to her. "Because I _did _see you. You did _let _me see you, finally.

"You asked why I keep holding your hand? It's because I _finally_ got to know you, the real you, without all the spikes in the way—and I _like_ you." She smiles, and Megamind stares up at her in total disbelief as she squeezes his fingers. "You're sweet, you're conscientious in a weird, backwards sort of way, you're absolutely brilliant—I did know that one already. You're interesting to talk to; I knew that, too. And you're _funny_. I never realized how _funny _you are. And you always try your best. I've never seen you give up, except for that once."

Her smile slips a little, and she lies down again. On her side, this time, facing him. "Also, I think physical contact might be one of the few things that gets through to you. So, yes, I'm going to keep holding your hand."

He's having trouble breathing. His breath is shivery in his lungs. "—doesn't make sense," he whispers.

She pauses. "Does it have to?" The wistful tone is back in her voice again, and her fingers tighten in his. "It feels right, Megamind. It really does. Sometimes…as long as you're honest with yourself, I think that might be all that matters. I haven't let go of your hand yet because I want to hold it, I will always want to hold it, and there's no reason not to hold it." He can hear her smile.

"But I'm—I _lied _to you, I—I cant—"

"You made a mistake."

"Many mistakes!" he cries. "Same mistake, multiple times! With the, with the lying and the pretending to be Bernard and the lying to you!"

"One mistake," she fires back. "Lying to _yourself _that doing that was okay."

He freezes.

"You messed up but you liked the result, so you lied to yourself to rationalize why you could keep having that result." She shakes her head, squeezes his hand in hers again. "Simplify it, Megamind, factor it out. It all comes back to one mistake. Just one."

That…oh. That. Does sort of make sense. Megamind turns this over in his head for a few seconds. Is that…wait, is that how this works? Can it work like that? Instead of snarling at himself for repeatedly fucking up, he can—he can identify the root cause of why he fucked up and—and go from there? That's an option?

Roxanne stirs. "Am I wrong?"

"No, I…I suppose not, but…" He trails off, still trying to get his head around this. "Roxanne, you are giving me a lot of doubtful benefits."

Her lips twitch. "Yeah, well," she says dryly, "don't do it _again_, obviously. But for now…I still want to hold your hand. It still feels _right _to hold your hand."

Megamind forces himself to take a long, deep breath, and then he looks at her. For a long, long moment, that's all he does—just lies, very still and serious, in the grass, and looks at her.

Then he brushes a thumb over her knuckles. "Are you saying this is the natural state of things?"

"No," she says softly, and tightens her grip again. Brings his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles. "I'm saying I hope it is."

That makes Megamind's throat close up. He has to swallow hard and squeeze his eyes shut to be able to speak again. "I hope so, too."

Roxanne lets out a long sigh. "Good," she says, and her eyes fall closed.

They lie like that for a few minutes. Roxanne is fairly sure she's managed to convince him that she wants him, and is content to simply stay where she is. For his part, Megamind feels like he hasn't been able to breathe in about a year, and his heart rate slowly returns to a regular pace as the adrenaline bleeds out of his system. He'd hoped to set Roxanne at her ease by remaining in the grass—it seems to have worked, but it wasn't easy to keep himself on his back without crossing his arms over his chest or doing something to protect himself.

When he's finally able to look at Roxanne again without worrying about throwing up out of sheer terror, he notices again that there are dark circles under and around her eyes.

"Roxanne, have you been sick?"

She blinks at him. "No. Why?"

Megamind surprises them both by making what is possibly the boldest move of his entire life and touching a long, slim finger to the skin under her eye. "You look. I don't know. Tired."

Roxanne is silent for a long moment before she admits, "I haven't been sleeping."

"What, at all?" The conversation is so _normal_. Megamind is a little surprised to find that, yet again, the very worst thing that could possibly happen has passed and the world is still turning.

"Not enough to count." Roxanne shakes her head, laughs a little. "It's ridiculous, it really is. Hal is in jail."

Megamind grimaces. "Ah. Dreams." He frowns. "I thought you were in therapy to avoid that sort of thing?"

"I have an appointment next week, but they were pretty booked. I'm not on their regular schedule anymore, I haven't been in years." She shrugs. "When you know you aren't actually in _danger_, therapy becomes kind of redundant."

The earlier rush of adrenaline has left him wobbly; he doesn't quite trust himself to sit up just yet. Megamind rolls onto his stomach, instead, and props himself up on his elbows. "Wait a minute," he says slowly. "You feel _safe _with me?"

Roxanne looks up at him, eyes at half-mast. "Well, I trust you," she replies, as if it's the most natural and reasonable thing in the world to trust someone who's been kidnapping her on a regular basis for almost a decade.

Then she sits up. If she doesn't, she'll fall asleep. "…Should go."

Megamind watches her, amused and still trying to process the _I trust you _thing. "Was there a subject in that sentence? I should go, you should go?" He pauses, suddenly hopeful. "We? Should go?"

Roxanne nods, laughs, points at him. "Yes. I like that one. _We_. But I have to go back to work. There are some things I need to finish, one or two loose ends to tie up before I can head home for the day." She doesn't _want _to leave. She _wants _to just lie with him in the grass and never move.

But this isn't some storybook fantasy where she can just roll over and tear off his watch and kiss him senseless in the middle of the park. This is life. Everything cannot be made okay with the wave of a wand. Megamind's full pardon was a lucky break, but this is not a fairytale where they can all live happily ever after and nothing hurts.

This is life. And life comes with responsibilities, and heartache, and a career to worry about.

Megamind sighs and rises, pulls Roxanne to her feet. "I'll drive you back."

* * *

This is the fourth consecutive evening that Roxanne has returned to an empty apartment. She's beginning to hate it.

Minion was with her for less than two weeks, most of which Megamind wasn't even awake for, and Roxanne is honestly astonished at just how attached she was to having the company around. She was happy enough on her own before they came to stay, but now that they're gone…

She unlocks the door and her apartment is neat, orderly. There are leftovers in the fridge, but not many anymore. It is dark, and quiet but for the gentle humming of the air conditioner.

Megamind's words in the car drift back to her, unbidden: _We can't let this go public. Not yet._

Roxanne isn't terribly enthused about hiding their relationship, but Megamind is insistent, and she has to admit he has a solid point. Everyone still thinks he killed Metro Man. Everyone _also_ still thinks Roxanne and Metro Man were an item. If the news that she's seeing Megamind gets out too soon, they'll both catch hell for it. And Megamind doesn't have a good reputation to fall back on.

She scowls.

For the past four nights, she has come home late to a silent room and an empty bed and gone to sleep, only to wake up scant hours later in a cold sweat, gasping and shaking. Getting back to sleep after that is difficult if not downright impossible.

So she nods to herself. She has been considering this for the past two days, and today's conversation in the park has made up her mind. She packs an overnight bag with some clothes and a few necessaries, then hurries back downstairs and hails a taxi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roxanne is a smart cookie
> 
> me: wait, crap, it's been like fourteen years since my last algebra class; is "factoring" the right word? the thing where you take the common piece out and put it in front of a parenthetical expression?  
me: ...good frickin lord i am watching youtube videos about polynomials at 6 in the goddamn morning, i do not care enough about this, if i'm wrong someone will tell me :P


	9. Chapter 9

This is the earliest in a long time that Megamind has considered going to sleep, but he's been awake for the past thirty hours and the exhaustion high wore off a little while ago. The half-finished blueprint in front of him is blurry and he can't focus, and he completely ruined part of the paper for drafting when he slipped into random sketches an hour ago. He tips his head back, gazing up at the only light currently shining in the big room.

The Lair is dark around him, as he prefers it sometimes when he's trying to think, but the drafting table is illuminated by a lamp he's proud of—there's no filament bulb, only a spherical container with a white-glowing liquid solution inside. He only has to shake the sphere for about thirty seconds and then hang it on its string, and it will glow for the next four or five hours.

He's still working on reducing the recharge time. The compound he currently uses to return the precipitate to its component molecules has to be added separately, and the liquid takes almost half a day to reset. He's sure there's a way to reduce the time, maybe even figure out a self-contained system based on molecular masses…_Yes, that could work_...

Megamind scowls and pushes his chair away, blinking light-spots out of his vision. Enough of this. He isn't getting anything done, he can't focus on any one thing for any amount of time, and he's just plain _tired_. The last conversation in the car that afternoon took a lot out of him, even though Roxanne did agree to keep things between the two of them for now. She wasn't happy about it, and he hardly wanted to _have_ to hide, but they both know their relationship would look bad.

Still, he hadn't liked to leave her like that: frowning as he drove away. She really wasn't happy, and convincing himself that no, she isn't mad at _me_, was…difficult. He still isn't totally convinced, if he's being honest with himself, but—he is convinced enough not to panic about it. That will have to do for now.

Without really thinking about it, he picks up his pencil again and does one last quick sketch to cheer himself up.

Then he worries his feet out of his boots and takes off his gloves and cape, leaving them in a messy heap by the drafting table before hurrying across the cold bare floor to the oversized couch in the corner and throwing himself down onto it. Yeesh, the floor is cold. One of these days he should really look into getting some rugs, or something. But the couch was a good find—black leather, far too big, and only one owner from new so it was already broken-in and all Megamind and Minion needed to do was make sure it was disinfected. Megamind sleeps on it almost as frequently as he does in his bed. Sometimes more frequently, depending on the plan he's working on.

He yawns, patting around over his head until he finds his little bolster pillow for his neck, and then he stretches out on his back, folds his long hands over his stomach, and closes his eyes.

* * *

The taxi driver says nothing about the destination, but he almost protests when Roxanne tells him to let her out by what looks like an abandoned power plant by the harbor at the edge of the distribution district. He grapples with his better judgment as she gets her bag from the backseat, and finally tells her if her body turns up in the harbor, it's not his problem. She laughs and tips him almost double what she should, and he drives away shaking his head, convinced the city's star reporter has finally cracked.

The fake observatory has been taken down.

Roxanne doesn't really expect the secret entrance to still be labeled, and it isn't. She also doesn't really expect it to be open; there's no way Minion would leave it unlocked after he was so concerned about people finding the Lair. Still, it's worth a shot, and she walks towards the wall with one hand stretched out in front of her and the other dragging her suitcase behind her.

She bounces off. _Damn_.

But there must be a way to get in. She can't imagine Megamind would use something as mundane as keys—after all, there's some pretty strong evidence to suggest that Megamind has never used a key in his life. He's never needed to.

No point in looking around for a key, then. Roxanne runs her palms over the wall. It looks like brick—luckily, the moon is full and there is light enough to see by—but it feels cool and smooth beneath her hands. There aren't any rivets or connectors she can find.

She searches systematically, stretching as high as she can reach and sweeping her hands in straight lines over the smooth plane, back and forth, back and forth, feeling for any difference, for any shift in texture or depth that might give something away.

There. About four feet off the ground, she finds a seam—she follows it with her fingers, traces a rectangle. The difference is delicate, the seams very small and tight, but there's a panel here.

She pulls out her cell phone, hoping for better light, and after a few quick experiments she discovers that by angling the screen almost straight down at the wall, she can see the shadowy outline of a rectangular panel with a circular disc in the middle. It can't be a retinal scanner; it isn't at Megamind's eye level and he's far too proud to stoop. Roxanne shrugs and takes a wild guess, and presses her left index finger to the middle of the circle. She doesn't think it will work.

So she's surprised when there's a shudder and the whole wall shifts back and slides away. The illusion remains, but she is able to walk through. Really, she should have known Megamind would have her fingerprints. In another life, she might have thought it creepy; now, she finds it both endearing and sort of touching that he gave her access at some point. Her guidelines for what constitutes 'creepy' have really shifted in the past few years, at least where Megamind is concerned.

She pulls her little rolling bag through after her and looks around for a way to close the door behind her, since she isn't about to leave it unlocked. Luckily, closing it proves easier than figuring out how to open it; the large red button on the _real _wall by the sliding door is clearly labeled. She watches the fake wall slide into place and lock down, impressed. The mechanism is almost completely silent. _Hydraulics?_

Evil Lair itself is also unsettlingly quiet—silent except for a distant pulsing hum unlike anything she's heard before. Small wonder she never noticed it; on her other 'visits,' the Lair has always been full of light and sound and activity. This is faint, and slow, and steady as breathing. She has to strain her ears to hear it.

Never mind the hum; the Lair is _quiet_, and that's unusual. There is a light, though, of a sort, emanating from the large room she found before, with Ber—Megamind.

She walks towards the source of the light, pointedly avoiding the "EXIT" on her way past. Halfway to the curtain she stops and takes off her shoes. If there's a reason everything is so quiet, Roxanne doesn't want to be the one who disrupts whatever experiment is in progress.

But all she finds on the other side of the heavy curtain is a drafting table with a sheet of blue paper on it, its surface tilted up. A glowing globe hangs from the ceiling, dangling on a chain above an empty chair.

Roxanne moves closer, tilting her head at the globe. _What _is _that?_ she wonders, and reaches toward it briefly before deciding that since she doesn't know what it is and it's hanging in Megamind's Lair, she probably shouldn't touch it.

Shaking her head, she turns her attention to the schematic on the board. It looks like some kind of oversized water filter, probably meant for marine use if the 'wave action' power cell is any indication. But the lower left-hand corner is a mess of mindless doodles—a bat skeleton posed as if in flight, its minute bones perfectly proportioned; a snake so detailed Roxanne could swear it was looking at her; a little landscape with a half-dead tree and a park bench; and…her eyes go wide.

There, near the bottom, etched in loving detail and white drafting pencil, is a tiny portrait of _her_. She is looking back over her shoulder, laughing, and the wind is in her hair. It must be from memory; Roxanne is sure no such photograph exists.

She rocks back on her heels, staring. She tells herself she really shouldn't be surprised at all—Megamind has spent nearly all of his life observing the world around him but rarely taking part in it, and of course his memory would be excellent, and the volatile nature of most of his inventions would require him to include precise detail on his plans, but _this_…

This, more than anything else, makes up her mind. Yes, okay, she loves him, more than she can possibly say. She wants Megamind and nobody else.

Biting her lip around a smile, she tears her eyes away from the drawing and takes a step back, then stumbles and nearly trips over a pile of cloth.

No, she thinks, glancing down, not cloth, cloth_ing_—leather gloves and boots, and the mass of crumpled fabric can only be Megamind's cape. She frowns. So Megamind is around here, somewhere. No way could anyone stand barefoot on a floor this cold for long. Even with her socks, her feet are already freezing. She looks around, peering into the deep shadows in the corners of the Lair, but for the most part, she doesn't see anything but row upon row of weird, spiky, probably deadly machinery.

In the farthest corner, though, low to the ground where the shadows are blackest and the light barely penetrates, Roxanne sees a darker, black-black shape that she can't quite make out. _Might as well go see_, she thinks, but she isn't about to venture into the tangle of machinery without a little more light than her cell phone can offer.

Upon closer inspection of the glow-globe, she realizes it's actually just a blown-glass sphere filled almost all the way with translucent liquid. A loop of glass around a metal hook on the end of the chain is all that keeps it aloft, and a silvery hinge at the base of the loop is the only indication that it can be opened. It is beautifully simple—it's beautiful, and that's all there is to it.

There are finger-smudges on the glass, so it must be safe. She climbs up on Megamind's high-backed chair to reach up and lift it cautiously off the hook with both hands, but then she has to jump hastily down when the chair rocks sharply backwards.

The muffled thump when her feet hit the floor makes her wince, but the globe is safe and there's no response from anywhere else in the Lair.

She holds the globe up and blinks at it, fascinated. It's cool to the touch. The liquid inside is slightly more cohesive than water, as she discovers when she sloshes it gently from side to side—oh, and it gets brighter when she shakes it! It's almost like the glow sticks she played with as a child, but she can't see any broken capsule inside, and the light it gives off is pure white. _Like a tiny moon_, she thinks, _or a star._

She gathers up her shoes and drapes Megamind's bundle of clothes over one arm. Then, still holding the globe in both hands, she heads off into the darkness.

The rows of machinery look sinister in the sliding light from the glow-globe, throwing their leaping shadows like claws on the walls, but Roxanne knows what they look like in full light. They don't bother her too much as she walks towards the deep shadows, banishing darkness as she goes.

She nearly laughs aloud when she sees what the dark shape was: a large, black leather sofa. Megamind is lying on it, dead to the world, his hands folded over his middle as though ready for burial.

Roxanne puts the clothes and shoes down on the floor by his elbow, then hesitates.

She doesn't want to wake him, but she can't very well stand where she is all night. For a moment, she simply stands and watches him breathe.

His skin doesn't _look _particularly tough. It looks translucently paper-thin in the sharp white light of the glow-globe, stretched tight over his high cheekbones and sharp chin and his temples, but Roxanne has seen this man face explosions and walk away without a scratch. She brushes the backs of her fingers softly down the long line of his neck, carefully lays her hand flat along the plane of his cheek.

She's never kissed him, she realizes. Not when she knew it was him. She has _wanted _to, after the battle and then when he finally woke up and in the park this afternoon. But after the battle she was still too confused and there were _so_ many people around, and when Megamind came out of his healing torpor he was freaked out and unsure and Roxanne even feels a little bad about cuddling up with him like she did. And she will not kiss Bernard's face again, she _will not_, not until Megamind is very secure about which face she prefers, and then only if she has to.

She could kiss him now.

She quirks a smile into the darkness; Megamind probably wouldn't complain if she woke him up that way.

She puts the globe down carefully on the pile of clothes, then bends down and turns his face towards her, presses her lips to his mouth.

Megamind wakes with a start in almost the same movement, his eyes flying open and then fluttering closed again as he tilts his chin up for a better angle and lifts a hand to the back of Roxanne's head. He isn't sure how this happened or if he is, in fact, awake, but he isn't about to try to figure that out. All he knows right now is: Roxanne is here, and Roxanne is kissing him, and Roxanne is all that matters.

After a moment, she pulls back a little, and Megamind smiles dazedly up at her. Roxanne runs her thumb over his lower lip and then down his goatee, smoothes her fingers along the sharp edge of his jaw.

"I had a bad dream," she says softly, in answer to his unasked question. She can hardly keep her smile from jumping off her face. "Can I sleep with you?"

Megamind looks at her, snorts, then bursts into delighted laughter and opens his arms, all but purrs as she dives down into his side. _It's happening again, it's happening _again, and he thinks he might die of joy right then and there when she snuggles in warm against him. Roxanne is here, she's in the Lair, she came and _found _him. Because she _wanted to_.

…But this is a couch. It's a big couch, but it is still a couch; if they stay there, one or both of them is going to fall off.

He shrugs himself further into wakefulness and clears his throat. He should have done this before she laid down, he thinks regretfully. "We should. Um. The couch isn't big enough."

Roxanne lifts her head. "You have a bed?"

He blinks down at her, amused. "Well, of course," he says. "I can't sleep on a couch all the time. As much as I am really enjoying having you here, the bed would be more comfortable. Not," he adds hastily, realizing with some horror how he must sound, "not that I'm _suggesting_ anything, I mean—it's—rather soon for _that_, if that's even an _opt_—mmng." Roxanne is kissing him again, lifting herself onto one elbow and stroking her other hand softly up and over the swell of his head.

It's cliché, but it works, and the quiet smile Roxanne wears when she pulls away again makes him want to die and sing and explode and sit very quietly and just _feel _all at once.

"Megamind," Roxanne says, very seriously, cupping the side of his head in her hand and sweeping her thumb over the gentle dip of his temple, "I love you. And it is an option. But not tonight."

_She just…she said…_ He hasn't heard anything past 'I love you,' and her hand on her head is so warm and nice and Megamind doesn't trust himself to speak so he just curls his hand around her jaw and pulls her towards him, and this time _he _is kissing _her_.

Initially, anyway. That's before Roxanne licks his lips apart and presses him down, her tongue flicking into his mouth. His hands flutter over her back; he isn't really sure what to do with them and can't think clearly enough to figure it out.

Then the leather couch gives a loud, groaning squeak, completely ruining whatever moment they were building, and Roxanne has to bury her face in the curve of Megamind's shoulder to muffle her laughter. It's infectious, and he finds himself laughing, too, hugging her as tightly as he can manage without crushing her, both of them giggling like children.

As their laughter dies away, and Megamind feels Roxanne smiling against his collarbone, he realizes that if he doesn't do something _right now_ neither of them is going to move. And then they will both wake up with twisted necks, cranky and achy and snappish. That's if he _can_ wake up cranky with Roxanne almost lying on top of him like she is; he isn't at all sure that's even possible.

He pushes himself up a little and waits for Roxanne to move before sitting up the rest of the way. "Come on," he says. "Bed. If we sleep here we'll wake up even more tired than we are now."

Roxanne sighs a little, but Megamind is right. She pulls her shoes back on without undoing the laces, picks up the glow-globe, and stands, looking around the darkened Lair while she waits for Megamind to get his boots back on. _What would it be like to live in a place where one wrong move could send you falling into...is that one actually _made of knives_? What the..._

A weight settles over her shoulders without warning and she jumps and lifts a hand to her neck, feels cold metal spikes. She turns to Megamind, who is standing now as well and gazing at her critically with his arms crossed over his chest and hips cocked to the side. "Hmm."

Roxanne rubs the material of his cape between her fingers. It isn't silk; it's too heavy for that, too dense, but it's much softer than she was expecting and it ripples like water when she moves, and she says the first thing that pops into her head: "I have _got _to go rollerblading in this sometime."

Megamind laughs. "Minion will make you one that fits better," he promises, then frowns a little and tilts his head the other way. "With a modified collar. That one's too wide for you." He takes her hand and leads her back towards the drafting board and her suitcase.

"No spikes," Roxanne tells him. "If I fall, I'd rather not get impaled."

"How about smaller spikes?" Megamind asks, holding up his thumb and forefinger. "Little ones?"

Roxanne chuckles. "No spikes."

"Oh, _please?_"

"No. And no catsuit, either," she adds, much to Megamind's dismay, as she stoops to pick up her bag. "I don't have the figure for that."

When he doesn't respond, she looks at him, and finds him gazing at her with burning eyes. _Good lord_, she thinks, completely taken aback when she realizes she's actually blushing. _Where on earth did he learn to smolder like that?_

Megamind holds her with his eyes for a moment more and then turns away, but not before raking his gaze down her body and back up again and curling the corners of his mouth up into an amused, vaguely condescending smile that's different from the ones Roxanne has seen him wear before.

Honestly, he talks with his face almost as eloquently as he does with his voice. The smile and the eyes and the posture all scream, _I heartily disagree, I'm just too polite to argue with you right now_. And he is blue and big-headed in every sense of the word and gangling and just absolutely _gorgeous_.

And somehow, through some miraculous stroke of brilliant luck, he is hers. And she is his, completely, and she cannot stop staring.

"You should have seen Minion's face," Megamind says quietly as he leads her down a long, wide hall. Roxanne is carrying the glow-globe and following a little behind him, enjoying being able to see how he moves when he's not hiding under the long cape. "He said—all he said for the next five minutes, actually, was a lot of variations on 'I told you so.'"

Roxanne glances up. She has known him for years, and she still can't figure out which of them is taller. One or both of them has always been wearing heels. "I was wondering about that. You sounded earlier like you hadn't talked to him at all."

"I didn't—" Megamind hesitates for a bare second, then continues. "I didn't want to let myself believe him. He said you loved me, and I couldn't…" He trails off, shaking his head. "You understand. I couldn't believe that. I still can't really believe it. In here," he adds before Roxanne can tell him again that he is being stupid.

She puts the globe down on the large bed and grins at the black sheets, but turns to face Megamind before doing anything else. He meets her gaze with an almost sheepish smile. "You," Roxanne says, "are unbelievable." She brings her hands up to wrap around the sides of Megamind's long neck, pressing the heels of her palms into the hollows just behind his ears so she can lace her fingers together slowly at the base of his skull. Megamind's breath catches in a ragged gasp.

"Listen to me." Roxanne's voice is firm, and Megamind's eyes are huge. "I love you. More than you will ever know. More than I can say. More than there are stars." Her mouth curves into a wry grin. She isn't good with flowery speech. "I love you. I…Megamind, I fell pretty hard for Bernard, and I really don't care that you're bald," she brushes her thumbs over his skin, "or that you're a popular primary color. If you believe nothing else, believe that, and if you won't listen to me, listen to Minion. He knows what he's talking about."

Megamind inhales, blinks a few times, tries to ignore what her fingers are doing enough to form words. "The." His expression is almost pained as he struggles to get out a coherent sentence. "The comparison is. It doesn't work. The units of measurement, they, they don't…" Fuck, how is he supposed to speak when she's smiling at him like that and has her hands around his _neck?_ He can hardly _move_. "Move…your hands," he finally manages.

Bemused, Roxanne slides her hands down to rest on his narrow shoulders, and Megamind almost staggers. Roxanne stands for a moment, wondering if she'd somehow hurt him by accident. He's breathing hard. "What just happened?"

He laughs breathlessly, helplessly. "The, um, the high collars—they exist for a reason. Um. The. Back of my neck is. Um." He lifts his gaze to hers, hoping, praying he doesn't actually have to explain further.

Roxanne's jaw goes slack for a moment. "Oh." Megamind is blushing hard enough that his meaning is pretty evident without further elaboration. She'll have to remember that, but he looks terribly embarrassed and Roxanne doesn't want to mortify him further. "Okay, then," she says. "But my point stands."

"I don't—know what love feels like," Megamind tells her when he can speak clearly again. He's determined to ignore his awkward response as long as Roxanne does, but he's very glad that his room is still fairly dark and she can't see how shaken he is. "But I can't think of anything else to describe this."

Roxanne grins and releases his shoulders, picks up her bag and hefts it onto his bed. She isn't going to sleep in her work clothes, and she has to do something to defuse the tension. She isn't up for another heavy conversation until she's had at least one good night's sleep. "Well, if _you _can't think of anything else."

Megamind squints. "Are you making fun of me again? I can't tell."

Roxanne looks up at him. She's usually such a spitfire, full of jokes and quick remarks, but the way she looks at him now is so soft and quiet and _fond _that he almost takes a step back. It's the way she looked at him in the park when she'd said that she could only hope that their being together was the natural state of things, and it's the way she looked at him when she turned the watch and revealed that he wasn't Metro Man.

She says something, but he doesn't really hear her. It doesn't matter, since he couldn't respond anyway.

* * *

Megamind's bed is more than big enough for both of them to sleep on separate sides, but when Megamind crawls tentatively into the middle just to see what happens, he finds Roxanne is already there. She doesn't say anything, only presses her body backwards against his chest, with the top of her head tucked under his chin, and pulls his arm over her shoulders so they're lying on their sides and nestling together like spoons. He wonders briefly what to do with his other arm, and eventually slips it under her head.

"Do that," Roxanne warns in a low voice, and he jumps, "and you'll wake up in the morning with no feeling in your hand."

"Do you mind if I…?" he asks, rolling his shoulder so his arm extends between her ear and her shoulder. The curve of her neck fits around him perfectly, and he crooks his elbow to wrap his arm up around her chest. She shifts around a bit, then settles.

Megamind isn't sure how it happens, but he ends up curled around her body and clutching her against him with both arms.

"Is this okay?" he asks after a couple of minutes, and Roxanne stirs.

"Mm? Yes," she says, snuggling backwards again, and then finding one of his hands and netting her fingers with his. "Yes, 's lovely. Go to sleep, Megamind." But a sudden puff of air a second later tells him she's thinking about something.

He lifts his head and looks down at her. "What?"

"It's not going to be easy, is it," she says softly, speaking more clearly than before, and Megamind knows she's thinking about their talk in the car earlier that day.

It's easier to think about, easier to talk about now that they're lying close together in Megamind's bed and not about to part ways. "No," he agrees softly. "It won't be easy."

Roxanne sighs. "I don't like it."

Megamind tenses. "I know," he says. "I don't like it either. If—if you'd rather put this off until we find out what Wayne is up to, I understand completely." So much of how he and Roxanne proceed will depend on the public's opinion of him, and the public's opinion hinges on the not-fact that he killed Metro Man.

Roxanne squirms around in his arms until she's facing him. "Stop," she tells him. "I told you before, we're not putting this off unless _you_ want to."

"No, I don't want to put it off." He frowns a little. "But what about your family? Minion told me you said dating Wayne made things easier for you. It might be simpler if you dated someone else, first, to get them used to the idea."

Roxanne pulls away just a little. "I'm not going to break some poor sap's heart just to make things simpler."

"No," Megamind says immediately. "No, of course not. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just." He shakes his head, lets out a soft groan of annoyance.

Roxanne reaches a hand up, touches his face. "Tell me."

"I know you," he says flatly. "I've known you for ages, and I know you trust your family and they trust you. If you have to hide me from them, it will stress you out. It _will_," he presses before Roxanne can interrupt. "You _know _it will. It will stress you out, make you unhappy. You'll grow to—to resent me, to resent hiding your relationship not only from your family but from the public in general. And resentment breeds hatred. Oh—oh for evil's sake, _what is so funny?_"

Roxanne is laughing again. "You know," she says, "you sound awfully sure of yourself for a guy with no relationship experience."

"I do read," he reminds her irritably. "And I know basic psychology. I know _advanced _psychology. I know how things work."

"Fine, but that isn't psychology, Megamind. That's jumping to conclusions." She presses her lips together for a moment, runs a finger along one of Megamind's eyebrows, making him blink. Then she rubs it back the wrong way with a mischievous grin and he yelps and swats at her hand. "Plenty of people have to hide their relationships. It won't be the first time for me, I'll tell you that much. Just because it gets stressful sometimes doesn't mean it's _Certain Doooom_," and Megamind can't help but laugh a little at her approximation of his supervillain's broad inflection. Roxanne smiles, pleased. "So, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It'll be okay. I don't think I could ever hate you; I've known you too long for that."

Far from reassuring him, this reminder only sobers him again. "That's another thing," he says. "You don't think we might be moving too quickly? You only found out who I was a couple weeks ago."

Roxanne's smile doesn't even slip. "I thought about that, too. And I don't think I'm worried about it. I still plan on dating you—dragging you out of the Lair every few nights, going to dinner, going to the theater, going to the park.

"And don't forget," she adds, "I've been seeing you frequently as Bernard since this past winter. That's a good few months, right there. So, no, I don't think we're moving too fast."

There is a pause, during which they lie still and listen to one another breathe. "I hope this works out," Megamind admits after a little while.

Roxanne starts a little, and he realizes she was nearly asleep. "Yeah," she says blearily. "Me too." She nudges him onto his back and wraps herself around him the way she had before on the couch and after he woke up in her apartment.

"Can I ask what made you think of that?" he asks, bringing his hand up to curl around her waist.

"When I said, 'go to sleep, Megamind,'" Roxanne mumbles. She hasn't slept well for some time, and now her body is going to sleep without her—her speech quickly begins to slur. "Never thought I'd say those words. I'm glad I can. M'glad you're here. N'your pajamas are the best pajamas." She hums and presses even closer, deeper into his side. "And y'r slippers. Little evil bats. Heh."

He lets out a shocked bark of laughter, then presses his lips to her hair before he lays his head back down and closes his eyes. "I love you, too," he whispers into the darkness, and follows her down into sleep.

_Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter - all that's left yet is the epilogue. I truly hope you've enjoyed Cold Fusion. Thank you for reading! I love you!


	10. Epilogue

When Minion's suit automatically hums to life at 7:00 on Saturday morning, the first thing he notices is that the Lair is still almost silent. That's unusual; Megamind almost always wakes before Minion does and already has everything up and running.

He checks Main Storage, first. It's where Megamind spends most of his time, after all—brainstorming and drafting and modifying old inventions and sometimes just stalking up and down and ranting quietly to himself about who knows what—but he isn't there. His chair is empty, the couch is empty, and the globe that usually hangs above the drafting table is nowhere to be seen.

He glances at the table as he walks by and realizes that Megamind is working on one of his suggestions: a filter for the water in Metro Harbor. He smiles—even with the brainbots' cleanup, the recent runoff into the harbor has been full of gross chemicals and poisons, and Megamind has evidently taken Minion's concerns to heart. Well, more openly to heart. Their relationship has never been that of the typical boss and subordinate.

And, damn, where _is _he?

He can't possibly still be sleeping. He never sleeps past six no matter how late he's up unless he's recovering from one of his battles with Metro Man. Maybe he went somewhere for breakfast?

Minion shakes himself, irritated. When has Megamind _ever _gone out for breakfast? For that matter, when has he ever gone out to get food, period? That's Minion's job.

Okay, breakfast is out. Maybe he's working on one of the reactors. But they both sound fine, both humming away in harmony, and Megamind wouldn't work on either of them without shutting it down first. He does in fact have a _brain _in his head.

Is he hurt? Could he be hurt?

Minion pauses. Megamind has slipped and fallen before during all his racing about; for all his agility and toughness, twisted ankles and sprained wrists are nothing new to him, and Minion's worries have been going full tilt ever since the Titan Fiasco. Maybe he fell and hit his head? Twisted his neck? It's enough to send Minion into a tailspin.

Well, and maybe he's still asleep. _There's a first time for everything_, Minion insists inwardly as he all but runs to his friend's room.

Despite his distress, he pushes the door open as quietly as he can; if Megamind _is_ still sleeping, the last thing Minion wants to do is wake him up. He gets little enough sleep as it is.

And, yes, there's Megamind, flat on his back in the middle of his bed, wide awake and grinning wildly up at the ceiling like a lunatic. He hears the door open in spite of Minion's care, and cranes his head around to catch Minion's eye. He beams, showing every single one of his teeth, hardly able to contain the sheer glee obviously coursing through him. And, really, who can blame him? Roxanne is snugged tight under his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder and her arm around his middle.

Megamind's huge, wordless grin tells Minion more than any words ever could, and the smaller alien rolls his eyes and closes the door, but not before aiming a finger at Megamind and mouthing very clearly, "_I TOLD YOU SO_" and adding a little stab of his finger for emphasis at the end.

With the door safely shut behind him, he sags against it and smiles. He has been hoping for this for the past two weeks. He had hardly dared to hope, at first, but as his week with Roxanne wore on, he had grown increasingly sure of her. And increasingly fond of her. Heavens, she needs him as much as Megamind does.

"Fist pump," he says to himself, and then, "One more for breakfast."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bloops hopefully at you like a goldfish begging for food*


End file.
